Still I can’t believe how quickly technology changes the way how we do business today.

I can’t forget days when I need to have that USB flash drive as a file storage if I found myself on another PC, on different location without my laptop or to transfer files from my home PC to my work PC.

Still I can’t forget days when I need to work with my team on different version of the document labeling it as a version one, two or three. Still I can’t forget a time when I need to have notebooks in my pocket.

I can’t forget such things because they are so fresh to me.

What I can do today? Here are some of the most-used things from me that simplify my life.

• Evernote – Everything that I need in one place. From ideas, to-do, bookmarked sites, documents, research, template to everyday notes is in my Evernote account. And what is more important, they are always here close to me, regardless my location.
• Google Apps – Collaboration is really easy with Google Apps. I can easily work on one document with my partners simultaneously, sharing and storing different stuff in form of textual documents, presentation or spreadsheets. And, again, the important thing is that they are always close to me, regardless my location.
• Dropbox – So simple, but so powerful way to store files and synchronizing between all devices that I use. My files are always close to me regardless my location.
• Reeder – I really like this application for my Mac, iPhone and iPad with which I consume more than 200 RSS feeds. One of the best features is synchronizing between all devices.
• GMail – I use gmail as a hosted email for my domain and my team members.
• Aweber – I use Aweber as my email marketing provider. It is so easy to use and set up everything.

As an entrepreneur you can have a goal to increase profit in your business. You want to use that profit to grow your business, to develop new products and services, to buy new technology…

More reasons you have to achieve your goals, the probability of achieving goals will be bigger. Because in such a way you will put yourself in efforts to accomplish everything that you will need to achieve such a goals.

There are, and always will be reasons why we do something. Bigger reasons in quantity and quality will mean that we will be more committed to do what we need to do.

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When it comes to gaining customers for your business, there’s certainly a snowball effect. The more loyal customers you already have, the easier it will be to bring in new ones – as long as you know how to leverage that loyalty. These days, more and more consumers are relying on their friends and family members – rather than traditional advertising – to help them decide where to spend their hard-earned money. In fact, Microsoft.com notes that on one survey, 72% of people check out online chat boards about a company’s reputation before buying its products, and 81% think that discussion boards are a good way to help find the best products and companies.

The fact is that if you already have loyal customers for your business, there will be more positive information on those chat and discussion boards, which can bring in new customers. But if you really want to leverage loyal customers to bring in new ones, here are four specific ways to make it happen:

Examine Demographics

The first step to gaining more customers is to figure out who your current customers are. Examining your loyal customers can help you target your audience even better. If you’ve already got a good business plan, chances are good that you’ve got a target demographic in mind. But as your business evolves, your target demographic should evolve, as well. Now, instead of just doing research and trying to guess who will most love your products and services, you’ve got real information to go off of in the form of your current loyal customers.

If you haven’t examined the demographic of people who are buying into your business in a few months or even years, it’s time to re-examine your target audience. Look at your loyal customer base to see what members have in common, and then begin tailoring your advertising and outreach campaigns to a similar audience you simply haven’t reached yet.

Use Social Media

One of the most obvious but multifaceted ways to use current customer loyalty to bring in new customers for your business is to use social media. If you don’t already have a Twitter feed, Facebook page and Google+ account for your business, it’s time to get on the ball! Besides these three things, you should also have a blog that gives readers an inside look at your business and that sets you up as the expert in your industry.

By inviting your already loyal customers to be part of your social networking initiative, you automatically get connected with each customer’s entire social network. There are a myriad of ways to leverage customer loyalty through social networking. You just have to find them!

If there’s any one area where you want to invest your advertising dollars right now, it’s in social media advertising. It’s worth your while to use small-business credit cards, bank loans or other forms of credit to set up great social media pages and even to add a few incentives, such as contests and drawings for your Facebook fans. As a small-business owner, you have to be very choosy about when you use credit, but a good social media campaign offers your best guarantee of great returns, especially if you work with a professional who is well-versed in the worlds of Facebook, Twitter and Google+!

Solve Customer Problems Quickly

Because of how simple it is for potential customers to find online reviews about businesses like yours, it’s incredibly easy for a small problem with customer service to become a huge blow to your business. Customers who are very unhappy with your business, for whatever reason, are most likely to speak out against you online and to leave bad reviews. These can very quickly escalate into a gigantic online reputation problem for your business.

For this reason, it’s more important than ever to solve customer problems quickly. Customers who have a problem that is quickly and efficiently resolved are going to leave great reviews about your business. Sometimes, showing that you can fix your mistakes is even better than seeming to make no mistakes in the first place! When you can find and resolve customer issues quickly, you’ll get better reviews online, which can make a world of difference as you try to bring in new customers for your business.

Continue Building Loyalty

Your main focus in using loyal customers to bring in new customers shouldn’t actually be how you can bring in new customers. That’s a side issue. Instead, your main focus should really be how you can retain your already-loyal customers. By creating customer loyalty programs, offering exclusive discounts and other bonuses to loyal customers, and communicating regularly with people who are already fans of your business, you’ll continue to create and cultivate loyalty among your customers.

In a world where social networking takes center stage, loyal customers will end up bringing in new customers all on their own. So as you’re focusing on gaining new customers, make sure you’re doing everything you can to continue building loyalty among your current customers. By simply keeping a focus on customer retention and loyalty-building, new customers will automatically trickle in at the recommendations of their friends and family members.

As a small business blogger at Credit Donkey, Ashyia Hill says using loyal customers to gain new ones isn’t a new practice, by any means, but it’s becoming more and more important in today’s world of social networking. As consumers place much more value on the opinions of others and much less value on inauthentic advertisements they can usually see straight through, it’s more important than ever that small businesses focus on building customer loyalty in order to bring in new customers.

This is a guest post by Ashyia Hill, small business blogger at Credit Donkey.

As an entrepreneur, you probably have experience in dealing with angry customers. Sometimes your angry customers are right because of mistakes made by you or your company, but sometimes their irritation is because they are always angry or because other problems they have.

How you can deal with the different angry customers?

You probably know that customers are always right. But, in many cases that can be the wrong approach. Wrong because of you and your time in which you will need to deal with that angry.

1. Listen to Them

Regardless the type of customer who’s angry on your company, you need to be a good listener before everything else. You need to know why they are irritated and what’s the mistakes that they think your business makes.

2. First Analyze Before Decide Anything Else

Don’t decide before you make a good analysis of that angry customers.

You need to ask questions like how that customers contribute to your business, how much income they generate for you, what’s the frequency of their buying habits, can you improve something about that…

Based on the answers of that questions you can decide about worthiness of your time to deal with such a customer.

3. It’s Nothing Personal

Sometimes the language of angry customer can seem very personal to you. But it’s not personal. Whatever your angry customer says or does, don’t take it personally.

You are an entrepreneur, with customers who in most cases are disappointed by your business processes, not by you or your employees.

4. If it’s Worth Your Time, Ask How You Can Make Him Happy

You don’t want only to satisfy that angry customer. You want to find real problems and try to improve your business processes for the future. The best information can come from these types of customers.

But, you need to be careful, especially for the customer who is not someone who contributes in large for your company. Sometimes they can be ordinary passers that come once and never again to do business with you. Ask yourself is it worth your time to find how to make them happy.

5. Put That Customer on Your Waiting List

When you know reasons for their irritation, you will need additional analysis to make the right decision. Thanks for the information and tell that you will call them later.

But, don’t forget to call them back.

6. Is it Worth Time Dealing With Them?

You already know the value for that customer, and you already checked the sources of the problem, now you can easily decide about is it worth dealing with them.

7. Call Them Back and Talk About the Problem

When you decide what you need to do, call them back and start talking with them about the problems. Now, probably they are not so nervous and the conversation can be more informative and qualitative for you.

You have two possibilities: to apologize or stop your future business with them.

8. Apologize and Promise, or Fire Them

If they are worth for you, and you find that your business processes are the real reason why they are angry, you can tell them that something like that will never happen again. Apologize and tell them what you have already taken to deal with the problems.

If they are not worth for you, and their angry is not because of your business mistakes or your analysis mean that you simply lose your time, you can fire them. In such a way, you can increase your own productivity focusing on your most important customers, or someone who contributes for your business.

Problems are always part of the businesses. The task of an entrepreneur is to detect and solve them. But besides discovering and removing the problems entrepreneurs have to pay attention to their preventive removal, so they would never occur again to harm the business.

What I can see when it comes to the problem-solving process that entrepreneurs employ is following:

• They partially solve the problem.
• They solve the problem without removing the reasons for its occurrence.
• They recognize reasons that are not essential for the occurrence of the problem.
• There is a lack an entrepreneur to see the problem-solving process as a business improvement process.

How you can avoid such undesirable things in the business?

The answer is simple, through proper analysis of the situation, identifying root causes for the occurrence and removing of them which will provide such a situation never again to be part of a process.

Among the various tools for such an analysis is a cause and effect diagram, also known as a fish bone diagram or Ishikawa diagram.

What is Cause and Effect Diagram?

Cause and Effect diagram was developed by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa, a pioneer in the field of quality management from the 60s in the last century.

The diagram is called as a fish bone diagram because the final look of it will be in the form of fish bone.

Although the basis of development of the diagram was to improve the quality, this technique can also be helpful in analyzing various business processes such as detection of causes, detection of “bottlenecks” in the manufacturing process, improvement of various processes …

The technique is good because of unique method that enables creative thinking and breakdown things into the reasons in order to come to the right solution.

How You Can Use the Tool?

To use this tool you need to have a problem that needs a solution. Is there a business without the problems?

I will try to cover the basic steps in the implementation of the technique in the problem-solving process.

Step 1: Identify the Problem.

First thing that you need to do is to identify the problem you want to analyze. Good starting point is to start with a description of the situation, consequences for your business, possible reasons, responsible departments, etc.

Once you define the problem, you can start to construct the diagram as shown in the image below.

Step 2: Identify the Main Causes of the Problem.

In this case, the problem is the effect from some causes, and therefore, the second step must identify all possible reasons for this situation.

When it comes to business problems, it is best to start with subjects or business elements that can be the cause of this problem. These elements can be people, procedures, materials, skills, systems, equipment …

The task of this step is to brainstorm as many as possible potential reasons for the problem.

Once you identify all main reasons you can add them on the diagram as shown in the image below.

Step 3: Identify all Possible Sub-causes in Each Main Cause.

Since you already have the main reasons then each of these causes is the result of more sub-causes. If you ask why for each main cause, you will have many answers that can simply become sub-causes. For example, if one of the main reasons for a late delivery is the production process, we can have possible sub-causes as following:

• Long preparation time,
• Not optimized layout in plant,
• Wrong norms,
• Too many errors in production process,
• Wrong planning …

For each of these reasons there will be probably additional reasons that you will need to break down into the diagram. For example, if you take errors in production process, possible reasons can be:

• Employee training,
• Raw materials with low quality,
• Mistakes in maintenance of technological equipment …

After you identify all possible sub-causes for each main cause into the tiniest detail of breakdown you can add them in the diagram as in the image below.

Step 4: Analyze Diagram.

Once you finish the previous step, you will already have a complete diagram that shows all possible causes of the problem. This way will allow you to identify more than one reason. In business only one cause for a problem is not the usual case. The problems are complex and require more complex solutions.

Therefore, in this step, you will need to analyze the diagram. The analysis will require detailed consideration of each cause by recording the state of the field, conversations with responsible people, interviewing, meetings …

The purpose of the analysis is to prepare a project with specific steps to solve the problem and eliminate all possible causes in the way they will not occur in the future.

Many times here on Entrepreneurship in a Box I emphasize the meaning and importance of the business model.

In the past, there was not a systematic approach to build one business model that will enable you systematically to follow and improve it through the practice.

The best approach to build a business model in a very descriptive way where you will obtain the most important aspects of your business is described throughout the book titled as  Business Model Generation – A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers from Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

In the book, they define a business model as:

rationale of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value.

Here is the explanation video of the model.

Everything that your business is doing or making have a purpose. The purpose is customers to want to buy the products and services that your business delivers to them.

They will buy if they like them. They will buy your products and services if they need them.

Your buyers are the heart of your business. They are persons that dictate what you need to do, what you need to change or what you need to improve.

Without them, you will not survive on the marketplace.

After your customers, the second important thing closely connected with your buyers are your products and services. That’s the hard connection between your business and your buyers, because at the end you can say that you succeed when the products from your business come into the hands of your buyers.

But, that’s not enough today. You can’t succeed with that one finished transaction, because you will need more transaction, more buying and more customers. To succeed in this, your buyers need to love your products and services.

Here are some ideas that you will need to include in the development process of your products and services if you want to ensure that your customers will love them.

1. Find a real problem with real desire for solution.

Your business needs to solve real problems for your buyers. Think about something that you use and exercise to find why you use them, why you like them and what type of problem they solve to you. Then, think about problems that you have and until today you can’t find a solution for them.

Continue the exercise about problems that’s partially solved for you. Probably, you already use something that was not completely a solution for your problems.

Now, you have a big list of possible problems that you already experienced. It’s time to start thinking through the view of possible buyers. Do they have such a problem? What is the way in which they solve such a problem now? Do they solve them fully? What is their quantity?

That type of questions will lead you to ensure that:

• There is a market for the possible solution,
• The market has a desire to solve or improve solving such a problem and
• The market is big enough to support your business.

2. Offer solution for that problems.

When you find the real problem for the real market with enough quantity of potential customers that desire to solve such a problem you can offer your solution.

Launching your product as a solution doesn’t mean that you have finished your job as an entrepreneur. You need to follow the situation to see if there is something more you can make or offer to your buyers.

Make sure that they love your products and services.

3. Always customize the products with customers needs.

Your buyers will evolve with a time. Their needs and their problems will change.

If your products and services don’t fit their new needs, probably will become something forgotten. Because of that you will need to customize your offer to ensure that they will always fit with the customer’s needs.

4. Be close to your customers.

If you want to deliver the right solution for your customers, solution that they will love, you need to be very close to them. That means you need to be much more than simple problem solver for them.

Ask them questions, talk with them and initiate different conversation that will help you to understand their needs or their real problems. Remember that without them, you can’t make it possible to be great problem solver for them.

5. Listen to them.

As an entrepreneur one of the most important tasks for you is to listen to them, learn from that listening and take appropriate actions from what you’ve learned from that listening.

God gave us two ears and one mouth, and we need to use them in direct proportion. You need to remember that the only valid sources of information about possible improvements in your business are your customers.

There are many ideas, many things, many tasks around you as an entrepreneur. You need to start doing something of that list, and also you need to say no to many things if you want to stay on the right road.

I like to have many things that I need to do, but my time and my priority is not always as I like to be. I need to decide to trash many things that I want to do, but that doesn’t mean it will be completely removed from possible work. Instead of real deleting stuff, I will put them somewhere for future review and possible decisions about them.

Here is a helpful quote about these types of problems.

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What is extraordinary experience for your customers?

How you can know that you provide extraordinary experience for your customers?

If your customers are satisfied with your company, they come back to repeat purchases, they feel good when they buy or when they recommend your business to their family, friends or colleagues, then probably you provide them with extraordinary experience.

Is there an entrepreneur who doesn’t like such a feelings for their buyers? Is there an entrepreneur who doesn’t want customers to come back and recommend their business to their family, friends or colleagues? The answer on these questions is probably no.

But, how you can focus your efforts to provide such a feeling for your customers?

Here are six important things where you can start.

1. Develop Extraordinary Products and Services

Everything else that you will make will not give you the results for extraordinary experience without excellent products and services. Your products and services needs to satisfy their needs and solve their problems primarily.

You need to focus yourself to ensure that your products and services provide satisfying of their basic needs, then articulated needs and always include their exciting need. The exciting needs will be something with which you will provide exceptional experience for them.

2. Let’s Your Business be More Friendly

You can’t expect behaviors as buyer and seller to be functional today. You need to be more than a seller for your buyers. You need to be their friend.

If you succeed to provide friendly environment, friendly words, friendly look and friendly behavior, they will be over satisfied with your business.

3. Offer Personalized Services

Is there a person who doesn’t like to feel important? Personalized services can produce that important feeling for your customers. They will receive something because of them, because of their needs, because they are important for you.

That’s feeling in them will ensure to come back to your business.

4. Be There for Them When They Need You

You have excellent products and services. Your business has friendly behavior with your customers, and they receive personalized services, but that’s not enough today. You need to be available for them. They will need your help. They will need to call you, to ask questions, to make conversation… You are a friend with them, are you?

You need to be available on all popular social media, on phone, in person meetings, on email…

If you are a person that can’t be geographically located in one place you can use one of that non-geographic numbers as 0845 numbers that will be connected to your existing phone number as landline, and will enable when people call you on that number to be immediately routed through to your existing phone number.

5. Educate Them

They want to learn new things, and you can be the best educator for them in your industry that will increase their knowledge.

6. Always Deliver What You Have Promised

Their extraordinary experience can be based also on your ability to deliver everything that you have promised. If you can’t deliver something, don’t promise that.

Sometimes it is very difficult to take the steps when you need to apologize. But, as an entrepreneur you must apologize many times in your entrepreneurial career.

As human beings we can make mistakes. Your business as an open system contains humans that doing a different everyday job can make mistakes.

Sometimes, mistakes can be because of external factors as our suppliers, partners and even customers. But, sometimes it is only customer’s perception about what you need to do.

For example, you can find yourself in a position where your customers think that you must apologize for something, and you think you mustn’t. That can be big collision between you and some of your customers.

Here, I want to show 10 different situation when you need to apologize, regardless who is right and who is wrong. Sometimes, apologies can be turned in worth driving force for your business, because people know how much hard is to make such a step. Let’s go on.

#1 When you are making a mistake.

I don’t think that we can find a person that can’t make a mistake. As human beings we made different mistakes every day. For some of them, we are aware, but for some we are not. However, they are here.

Every time when you or your business make a mistake, you will need to apologize.

#2 When you are not delivering on a promise.

Your business is built on the promise that your core value and offer give to your customers. When you can’t deliver on that promise, regardless the reasons about that, you will need to apologize.

For example, if you promise delivery in 24 hours, and because of some reasons, some of your deliverables can’t be delivered in that time frame, you will need to apologize and explain to your customers why that’s happened.

#3 When you don’t have what your customers want.

You can’t have everything for everyone. That means you can’t satisfy everyone. But, you will have potential customers who will want something more that is not a part of your current offer.

On the other side, that’s very useful information about your business future, because you can use that informations to rebuild or improve your current offers and your business overall.

But, the fact is that you can’t deliver that currently. In such a situation, it is best to apologize and tell that you will include that requests into consideration about future offers.

#4 When you are criticized.

As an entrepreneur you’re not safe from criticism. You can be criticized from your employees, your customers, your partners, your suppliers…

Because of that, you will need to manage critics who come to you and your business as a whole. It is not the best solution to act nervously on the critics. Some critics will be fair critics you will need to take into considerations to improve your business. But, also there will be critics without any right reasons.

On each critic, you need to answer with apologize and tell the criticizer that you will take them into considerations to improve your business.

#5 When you’re late on delivery.

Sometimes you can’t deliver your products and services on time. There can be different reasons about that.

In such a case, you will need to apologize and explain why that’s happened.

#6 When something went wrong.

Many times something will go wrong, differently than you have planned. When we make our plans, we try to make assumptions about that future. But, many times that assumption will not be in alignment with our reality.

You need to apologize when something went wrong.

#7 When your employees screw up something.

It doesn’t matter who screw up something in your business. You as an entrepreneur is the only representative person in your business, responsible for each decisions and action steps that will be implemented from your business, that means and your employees.

If the employees screw up something, you are the person that will need to apologize about that.

#8 When your suppliers make a mistake.

Sometimes some of the mistakes will be based on mistakes of your suppliers. But, the fact is that your customers didn’t care about your relations with your suppliers. You are responsible everything to be as need to be.

Because of that, you will need to apologize to your customers, not your suppliers. They are not having the relationship with your customers.

#9 When you think that you need to apologize.

Sometimes you can feel that you simply need to apologize for something. When you are in such a position, it is better to take that step, and explain what you think and what you will make about that.

#10 When you are thinking that you don’t need, but your customers expect from you to apologize.

Also, you can find yourself in a position when you think that even the expectations of your customers, you don’t need to apologize. Your customer is always right, even if he is not they. It is better to take that step and talk with them more openly about each of the possible problems.