At the beginning of my creative career, I volunteered as an overnight deejay at a college radio station. I loved playing the music and interacting with insomniac listeners, but I got a real kick out of reading the news. I would tear copy straight off the wire service printer and if I was lucky, I had a producer turn that raw newsfeed into informational text that I read into the microphone. The text was broken up into reasonable sentences that were designed for easy delivery over the air. When my producer didn’t show up for my shift, I did this myself I’d mark up the page, insert pauses, and emphasize the words and sentence clauses that I wanted to stress. If I couldn’t be understood over a fuzzy and weak AM signal, then what was the point of taking five minutes at the top of the hour to deliver the news? I had a lot of fun and I learned how to “speak” all over again. Whenever I do any live speaking today, I use the same exact techniques that I learned while the “On-Air” sign was flashing above the studio. I mark up my speech or the text passage I’m reading because I know that impact is everything. If I lose my breath in the middle of a sentence, then it’s too long. If the last word of a sentence drops out inaudibly, my message is lost. If I stumble on an unfamiliar word or name, my audience loses confidence in my message.

Live telephone operators who work in call centers and answering services need the same help that any live speaker needs. It’s the job of the call center operator to communicate the client’s business image to the caller, and this begins with the first few seconds of the phone call. Many small business owners’ needs never go beyond representatives answering their lines with “XYZ Company, may I help you?” and improvising the rest of the conversation to obtain the information that the client requests. When clients upgrade their accounts to more complex services, it’s important that they create a script that works for both the company signing up for the service, the operator reading the script, and the customer. Your sales representative is more than willing to help you create the best script to fit all of your sales or information inquiries.

Creating a call center script begins with the “answer phrase” and the same principles continue through the entire process of creating a logical script. H ere are some important items to keep in mind when you are creating your script:

• Avoid tongue twisters. Make your greeting as easy to pronounce as possible. “Doctor Perkowicz Peoria Plastic Surgery Plaza” isn’t easy to say, even for the native English speaker. Make sure that your operators know how to pronounce every part of your answer phrase, and the rest of the words in your script. Keep phrases brief and avoid repeating consonant sounds that will sound awkward over the phone or might lead the operator to stutter.

• Go global. A “Good Morning/ Evening” greeting can work for some businesses, but not for all of them. If your company is doing business across time zones, think about using a simple “Hello, XYZ Company” for your customer on the other end of the globe.

• Humanize your greeting. Have an impartial friend or a trusted customer listen to your greeting, especially if it’s a long introductory message of more than a sentence or two. Do you sound like a recording? If you give that impression to a caller, the person on the other end of the line might just hang up because she wants to talk with a live person, not a machine. Keep all parts of your script brief and give the operator relaying your message time to breathe and sound like a live person when you create your script.

• Less is more. There’s a temptation to try and pack all the information about your company into your call center script, including providing an operator a copy of your frequently asked questions list (FAQ) so that he or she can quickly scan the file and answer 99.9 % of your callers’ questions. However, this skill takes practice and training on the part of the operator and patience on the part of the caller. Long pauses to look up information, add expensive minutes to the call and are frustrating experiences for the operator and the caller alike. Extensive account training is available through most call centers, if your budget permits. If this resource is not an option for you, limit the information available to the operators to a few facts about your product or service, and let them know that it’s okay to ask callers if someone from the right department can return their call and answer their questions in depth.

• Test. Call your account weekly and test to make sure that the operators are following your instructions, are handling your scripts the way that you expect, and are able to easily access the information that they need to take your calls. After the honeymoon period with a new account, operators often grow lax and shorten your script, or improvise far beyond the call of duty. This can be detrimental to your business. Make sure that you follow up with your call center to make sure they are serving your needs.

• Tweak, and tweak again. Review your script from time to time, and see if it’s still leading to action. Ultimately, your script should lead to a sale, an appointment a request for more information or further contact from your office. Check your call logs and any statistics your sales representative provides you with on a monthly basis. If you notice a downward trend in your results, work with your sales rep to change your script.

These suggestions are only the beginning of creating a successful call center script for your organization. Work with your sales representative and listen to their suggestions, add your own, do your market research and your script will be a success. Clear communication starts with clear instructions from you, and clear voices on the answering end of your phone lines. Your call center will work with you to make sure that all of your needs are filled over and above your expectations.

It’s time to beat the old bad customer service drum again. I know, I’m sick of beating the drum, too, but as long as bad customer service runs rampant through so many businesses I feel it is my entrepreneurial duty to bring it to your attention. So grab a pew and prepare to listen to the sermon I’ve preached before: bad customer service is the bane of business. If the Almighty smote down every business that dispenses bad customer service, the world would be a much friendlier, albeit much sparser place. Consider a world without malls and fast food joints… would it really be so bad?

What puzzles me most is if bad customer service is such a death knell for business, why do so many businesses allow it to go on? Don’t they read my column, for Pete’s sake? I think the problem is that most bad customer service is doled out (or at least condoned) by business owners and managers who have ceased caring what their customers think. When you stop caring what your customers think it’s time to close the doors. Go find a day job. You’ll make someone a wonderfully disgruntled employee.

My latest parable of lousy customer service was actually experienced by my better half while attempting to buy my daughter a pair of basketball shoes. I won’t mention the name of the sporting goods chain store in which the bad customer service took place, but I will tell you that its name is similar to the sound a frog with hiccups might make.

As my wife waited for someone to assit, the four or five teenagers who had been charged with manning the store stood in a clump at the cash register giggling and flirting with one another as if they were at the prom instead of at work.

When my wife pointed out this fact, one of the employees, a cheeky lass of 16 or so, put her hands on her hips and said, “How rude!” The males in the group didn’t react at all. They were too busy arguing over who could take a break so they could chase other cheeky lasses about the mall.

Needless to say my lovely bride, who has the ability to instill fear into the hearts of even the most worthless employees, left the gaggle of giggling teen idiots standing with their mouths open in disbelief. How dare a customer tell them to do that with a pair of basketball shoes?

As much as I bemoan bad customer service I celebrate good customer service. It should be applauded and the purveyor of said good customer service should be rewarded for actually delivering satisfaction to the customer, above and beyond the call of duty.

So let me tell you the story of my new hero, Ken. I won’t tell you the name of the store in which Ken works, but let’s just say they started out selling radios in a shack somewhere long, long ago.

I first met Ken when I went into the store to buy a mixing board for my business that records audio products for the Web. In a nutshell, you plug microphones into the mixing board then connect it to the computer and you can record audio directly to digital format. Totally beside the point of this article, but I didn’t want you thinking that I was purchasing non-manly cooking utensils.

When I got the mixer installed it didn’t work. So I boxed it up and headed back to the store to return it. When I told Ken my problem he didn’t just grunt and give me my money back as so many bad customer service reps would do. Instead he asked, “Do you mind if I try it?”

“Knock yourself out,” was my reply, confident that if I couldn’t get it to work, neither could Ken. Ken took the mixer out of the box and went about hooking it up to one of the computers on display. He started pulling power cords and cables off the display racks and ripping them open and plugging them in. He tore open a new microphone and an adapter and kept going until he had the mixer hooked up and working. Yes, I said working. It turns out the mixer was fine. I just had the wrong power adapter.

Ken could have just given me my money back and been done with me. Instead he spent 15 minutes and opened a number of other packages that I was under no obligation to buy just to help me get the thing working.

I was so impressed that I not only kept the mixing board, I also bought another $50 worth of products. And the next time I need anything electronic guess where I will buy it? Even if it costs twice as much, I’ll buy it from Ken.

Now here’s the moral of the story: if you are a business owner who has a gaggle of teenagers in charge of customer service at your store you would be better off replacing them with wild monkeys.

At least monkeys can be trained.

Last week I made an early morning trip to a seminar/book promo breakfast to promote my web site. After putting out flyers all over the place I took a moment to step in to the facility and caught a few moments of a morning with Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE.

As I stepped through the door, a question and answer session was in progress. A woman stepped up to the microphone and asked “Is the customer always right?”

Jack smiled and said, “You might not think so, and they may believe so, but if you don’t make it so, you’re dead!”

Jack, that is a pretty strong consequence. Dead. But let’s face it. Who will come to do business with you again after you argue with them about their dissatisfaction? I think most people will just go somewhere else.

Isn’t is just common sense that we let our customer complain and then make it right? Well for the business owner, we usually just grin and say ” what would it take to make you happy today?” but what about our employees?

If we have not taken the time to train our employees how to deal with an unhappy customer, how will they react when one attacks them with ” the food was cold and tasted like crap!” or “I only had it for three days and the wheel fell off!”

It is important that as part of training any employee who has contact with the customer they have training on dealing with complaints as well as how to work the register or take the order. As a business owner you probably have already thought of that. Is there a piece of this puzzle missing?

The missing piece might be empowerment. The employee can be trained how to be calm and not take complaints personally. But what if they are not empowered to take action and correct the problem immediately themselves? What if you have instructed them to get you if there is a problem and you are on your way to the bank to make a deposit?

In most cases an angry consumer will not wait for you to return.

This would mean that if your employee is not empowered to make a correction or offer a compromise to make the customer happy, you would lose their business forever. How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much does it cost to make them happy when they are dissatisfied? The difference on paper is staggering.

Therefore, as part of the training of a new employee, it should be taught what is possible to do to make a customer happy when they are complaining. A quick response to a problem is appreciated almost more than the actual solution in most cases.

You see in life, we are all customers at some time or other, and I don’t know about you, but when I am an upset customer, I am always right!

I had reason to ask myself this question some time ago. The more I thought about it, the clearer the answers became.

If you are not making the money you want on the net now, read on and you will find some useful ideas based on my experiences. What I have to say applies equally to small business, home based business and network marketers.

The funny thing is that I knew what I had to do to make money. Nevertheless, I was not doing it! I continued to surf around various sites looking for that magic formula that would automatically put money in my bank account without having to do anything.

Why did I keep on avoiding the very steps or actions that would generate money for my business? Did I want my business to fail? No! Did I want to fail on the net? No! I was so easily distracted by the latest and greatest way to make money on the net that I spent my time reviewing these at the expense of building my own business.

I fooled myself into thinking that just because I had links to various products and services on my web page I would make money. The first fundamental principle of making money on the net is NO TRAFFIC equals NO INCOME. Just having a web page does not mean the world will beat a path to your door.

To solve this, I submitted my pages to the search engines. For a short time, when one of my pages enjoyed a listing within the top ten results for a keyword search, I had some extra traffic. Once I lost that position, the traffic dried up. I then tried resubmitting that page to regain my top 10 position but to no avail.

Now was the time for discouragement to set in. I had tried the obvious ways to get people to my web pages without success. I had submitted a few free classified ads but this was a tedious and time-consuming process. The results were far from spectacular also. There seemed to be no way to win on the net!

How do I make progress and what I have I learnt from this experience? With any success gained in life, there are a few of key factors - discipline, persistence and belief. Discipline is doing what needs to be done everyday to achieve the goal you are aiming for. Persistence is continuing the process but making changes where necessary so that the goal is reached. Belief is the confidence that you can do it.

With this in mind, it was time to go back to the basics of business and marketing and to answer some fundamental questions.

Who are people who will buy my product and/or service?

How can I reach them in the most cost-effective manner?

Once you know who will buy your product and/or service, then you can determine the best ways of contacting them. To know who will buy your product and/or service, ask yourself these questions:

What are the benefits to my potential buyers of my product and/or service?

Let us say that you are marketing a business opportunity. An important benefit of your opportunity is the ability of your prospect to make some extra money. Other benefits could include no longer having to work for a boss, financial independence, realization of dreams such as overseas travel, and the list could go on.

What people would gain from these benefits?

It is tempting to answer this question by saying “everyone”. However, this is simply not true. The best prospects may be those who are looking for an opportunity to increase their income. They could be people who are looking to start their own business but do not have a product or service to market. They could be people who have a small business and are looking for ways to increase their revenues.

Now we need to consider how we get in contact with these people. Where do they gather on the net? Are there others on the net who are already contacting this group of people?

One of the easiest ways to research how to contact the people who will buy our product and/or service is to review all the ezines published. Today, there are many ezines that cater to various interest groups and there is sure to be a number that will reach the people you need to contact.

Do a Google search to find sites where you can research ezines that may reach your target prospects. Examples include the Directory of Ezines and Zineworld. Once you have found the ezines that your prospects are reading, you have two ways of using this to your advantage. Most ezines accept classified ads for a fee and this can be an effective way to bring to your site a stream of qualified traffic.

However, the most cost-effective way is through writing articles that would interest your prospects and submitting them to the ezines for publication. Many ezines are looking for good quality material they can publish for the benefit of their readers. This provides benefits to you and the ezine publisher. You receive valuable free publicity for your site and the ezine editor receives a valuable contribution to their publication.

The targeted approach to contacting those who want to buy your product or service is usually always more cost effective that any other way. I am following my own advice and benefiting. I suggest you try it. Let us all make money on the web!

Q: How important is the name of a business? Should the name of a business reflect what the business does or is it better to come up with something catchy and easy to remember?

– Randy P.

A: What’s in a name? When it comes to your business, Randy, a lot more than you might think. In fact, deciding on a business name is one of the most important decisions you will ever make. The right business name can help you rise above the crowd while the wrong business name can leave you trampled in the rush.

With the economy in a slump and competition on the rise, now more than ever it is important that you put considerable thought into coming up with the perfect name for your business.

Unfortunately, this is a task that is easier said than done. It seems like all the good business names are either married or… no wait, that’s a different subject, but the analogy holds true.

We live in an age when a business called “The Body Shop” might repair wrecked cars or sell skintight jeans to teenagers, so before you send your letterhead to the printer, consider the following points to help you select the business name that’s right for you.

The first thing you should do is conduct a little research to determine if the name is already in use by someone else. You would be surprised at how many entrepreneurs forget to research this point and open a business with a name that is already in use. Check with the county clerk and the secretary of state to make sure the name isn’t already licensed for use or incorporated with the state. Also check with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office to see if the name is already trademarked, i.e., owned, by someone else. Using another company’s trademarked name exposes you to legal action by the trademark owner. Even if your name is just similar to the trademarked name, you may find yourself in court defending your right to use the name. And odds are it’s a battle you will lose.

If the name you choose is not in use, you should immediately reserve the name with the secretary of state (if you plan on incorporating) and apply for a trademark to ensure your legal ownership. If you do not trademark the name someone can come along later and attempt to steal the name out from under you. Imagine spending years building up your business only to have some upstart trademark the name and engage you in a legal battle over rightful ownership. This is one fight you don’t need, especially when the hassle could have been easily avoided with a few bucks and a few forms.

Another important thing to consider is the domain name for your business. The domain name is the website address a customer will use to find you on the Web. Is the domain name for your business name available? If not, is there a domain similar to the business name you’re considering?

You will undoubtedly discover that securing a suitable domain name is actually harder than choosing a business name. Most logical domain names are already reserved, but you might get lucky. Keep in mind that domain names should be short and descriptive, and preferably have the .com or .net extension. You can use other extensions (I’ve even used the “.to” extension on occasion) if necessary, just keep in mind that you will need to put forth a little extra marketing effort to promote the website address as people typically assume a .com extension as the norm. Whatever you do, don’t use a domain name that is a confusing amalgam of letters and numbers that is hard to remember and even harder for your customer to type in.

One good way to approach the task of naming a business is to do so from your customer’s point of view. Your business name should clearly define your offering and communicate your message to customers. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a moment. If you were looking for a business that provides your product or service, what would you expect that business to be called? If you were in the market for computer parts, for example, wouldn’t you look for a business that has “computer parts” reflected in the business name? Jim’s Computer Parts may not sound as snazzy as Jim’s Electronics Emporium, but snazzy doesn’t pay the bills. Happy customers who quickly identify you as the source of their purchase do.

The name of your business can also spark subconscious reactions in a customer that may drive them to you or drive them away. Words like quality, complete, executive, best, low-cost, and on time often spark positive reactions in the mind of the consumer. Words like cheap, discount, and used tend to create negative emotions. You’ll notice that no one claims to sell used cars anymore, but the dealer lots are loaded with vehicles that are “previously owned.”

Finally, let’s talk about things to avoid. Experts agree that you should avoid using generic terms like enterprise, corporation, partners, and unlimited as part of your everyday business name. These terms are fine for the legal business entity name, but are often too unclear for everyday use. Can you tell me what any of these companies do: ABC Corporation, Big Dog Enterprises, M&B Partners, and Discounts Unlimited sell? I didn’t think so.

Also avoid abstract names like Yahoo, Google, Monster and Flip Dog (I am not going to list the names of the numerous local high tech firms that have bucked this rule :o). Abstract names will require a subtitle to explain what the business does or an expensive marketing campaign that brands the name into the minds of consumers. Unless you have deep pockets, I suggest you go with a name that describes your business at first glance and leave abstraction to the likes of Cher.

Finally, you should avoid hokey names, unless of course, you are starting a hokey business. Crazy Dave’s Stereo Shop is a great name if the business is really run by Crazy Dave and his personality is exploited in the marketing of the business.

However, if you want to be taken serious, then give your business a serious name.

Would you go to Crazy Dave’s House of Dentistry?

Neither would I.

Here’s to your success.

Q: My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can’t be sold online. Do I really need a website?

– Robin C.

A: Congratulations, Robin, you are the one millionth person to ask me that question. Smile for the cameras, brush the streamers and confetti from your hair and listen closely, because I’m about to answer for the millionth time what has become one of the most important and often-asked questions of the digital business age.

Before I answer, however, let’s flash back to the very first time I was asked this question. It was circa 1998, during the toddler years of the Internet, just after Al Gore laid claim to having given birth to the concept a few short years before.

I was giving a speech on the impact of the Internet on small business at an association luncheon in Montgomery, Alabama. My motto then was: Feed me and I will speak. I have the same motto today, but I now expect dessert to be included in exchange for the sharing of my vast wisdom.

In 1998, which was decades ago in Internet years, the future of electronic commerce or “ecommerce” as it’s come to be known, was anybody’s guess, but even the most negative futurists agreed that all the signs indicated that a large portion of future business revenues would be derived from online transactions, or from offline transactions that were the result of online marketing efforts.

So, Robin, should your business have a website, even if your business is small and sells products or services that you don’t think can be sold online? My answer in 1998 is the same as my answer today: Yes, if you have a business, you should have a website. Period. No question. Without a doubt. Thank you, drive through.

Now serving customer number one million and one…

Also, don’t be so quick to dismiss your product as one that can’t be sold online. Nowadays there is very little that can not be sold over the Internet. More than 20 million shoppers are now online, purchasing everything from books to computers to cars to real estate to jet airplanes to natural gas to you name it. If you can imagine it, someone will figure out how to sell it online.

Internet marketing research firms predict that online revenues will range between $180 and $200 billion dollars in 2003. They also predict that the number of online consumers will grow at a rate of 30-50% over the next few years. These numbers alone should be enough to convince you that your business should have a website.

Let me clarify one point: I am not saying that you should put all your efforts into selling your wares over the Internet, though if your product lends itself to easy online sales, you certainly should be considering it.

The point to be made here is that you should at the very least have a presence on the World Wide Web so that customers, potential employees, business partners, and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer.

That said, it’s not enough that you just have a website. You must have a professional looking website if you want to be taken seriously. Since many consumers now search for information online prior to making a purchase at a brick and mortar store, your website may be the first chance you have at making a good impression on a potential buyer. If your website looks like it was designed by a barrel of colorblind monkeys, your chance at making a good first impression will be lost.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it has leveled the playing field when it comes to competing with the big boys. As mentioned, you have one shot at making a good first impression and with a well-designed website, your little operation can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company. The inverse is also true. I’ve seen many big company websites that were so badly designed and hard to navigate that they completely lacked professionalism and credibility. Good for you, too bad for them.

You also mention that yours is a small operation, but when it comes to benefiting from a website, size does not matter. I don’t care if you are a one-man show or a ten thousand employee corporate giant; if you do not have a website you are losing business to other companies that do. Here’s the exception to my rule: It’s actually better to have no website at all than to have one that makes your business look bad.

Your website speaks volumes about your business. It either says, “Hey, look, we take our business so seriously that we have created this wonderful website for our customers!” or it says, “Hey, look, I let my ten-year old nephew design my site! Good luck finding anything!”

What does your website say about your business?

Here’s to your success.

I am a huge fan of email. In fact, if you do business with me the bulk of our communication will not be through the telephone, but via email. Email is quick. Email is convenient. Email takes less time than long-winded telephone conversations. Most importantly, email gives me an electronic record of my communications with clients, employees, partners, and vendors; which makes it easy for me to refresh my quickly-aging memory by easily referring back to our electronic conversations.

As someone who receives and sends a couple hundred emails a day I have to tell you that I am constantly amazed at how poorly written and unprofessional most business emails are. I receive emails every day from fellow entrepreneurs that don’t even contain full sentences. They are often rife with spelling and grammatical errors or typed in all capital letters, and sometimes, are virtually illiterate.

One email I recently received from someone trying to sell me an expensive piece of equipment actually read, “tom– what you think — ready to buy?” First off, the name is “Tim” and secondly, what I think is: I will take my business elsewhere. Thank you, drive through.

Why should you worry about how your emails are reviewed by their recipients? Because in business, you are constantly being judged by your customers, your employees, your investors, your partners, and your peers. If your emails give the impression that you don’t put much thought into the composing of the message or that you’re too busy to be bothered or that you are a total idiot who can’t even use a spell checker, what do you think that says to the person on the other end?

Email is quickly becoming the business correspondence medium of choice for the reasons I covered above, and if you don’t take the time to learn how to effectively use email in a professional manner, it will come back to haunt you.

There are rules that should be followed when sending business emails. The website Email Replies gives 32 tips for email etiquette. Culling from that list and adding a few of my own, here are Tim’s Top 10 Rules of Email Etiquette that every entrepreneur, executive, and employee should follow.

Make It Short And Sweet

An email isn’t a letter from camp, so don’t drone on any longer than necessary. Keep in mind that reading an email on a computer screen is harder than reading printed communications, so keep it brief and to the point.

Use Proper Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation

This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of you and your company, it is also important to make sure your message is not misconstrued. Emails with improper punctuation (a comma and a period every now and then would be nice) are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the message. And, if your email program has a spell checker do everyone a favor and use it.

Include a Signature Block In Every Email

A signature block in an email is the same as the signature block you would use to end a letter. You should include your name, title, company name and address, telephone number, email address and website address.

Reply Quickly

This is my number one pet peeve: people who take forever to answer email. Fast response is especially important if the email is from a customer or contains time-sensitive information. Customers send an email because they wish to receive a quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or a fax or talk to your voicemail. Each email should be replied to within at least 24-hours, and preferably within the same working day. If the email can’t be answered in full immediately you should at least send a reply saying that you have received their email and that you will get back to them ASAP.

Read Every Email Before You Send It

There’s no better way to embarrass yourself than through a hastily sent email. A lot of people don’t even bother to read an email before they send it out, as evidenced by the many spelling and grammatical errors most emails contain. Apart from this, reading your email through the eyes of the recipient will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and inappropriate comments.

Do Not Discuss Confidential Information

Sending an email is like sending a postcard. Once it leaves your computer, the end user can do whatever they want with it, so if you do not want a documented record of your comments or the information shared with others, don’t send it. Moreover, never make any libelous, sexist or racially discriminating comments in emails, even if they are meant to be a joke. There have been court cases where email correspondence was used as evidence. That’s a road you do not want to go down.

Don’t Use ALL CAPS

In email terms, IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITAL LETTERS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING, so please tone it down. ALL CAPS are hard to read and can trigger an angry reply if the recipient mistakes the intention of your email. Emails should be written in standard sentence style. Turn the Caps Lock off and back away from the keyboard.

Avoid Abbreviations and Emoticons

In business emails, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business emails these are generally not appropriate. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley and his depressed pal . If you are not sure whether your recipient knows what an acronym means, it is better not to use it.

Don’t Use Backgrounds or Silly Graphics

I actually received an email from a fellow entrepreneur that had an animated smiley face waving a gloved hand in his signature block. If the email had come from Walt Disney I wouldn’t have been shocked. Coming from a small technology company, I had to wince. Not much to smile about there.

Remember That Email Is A Formal Business Communication

You wouldn’t send a formal letter to a customer that lacked a salutation, a well-thought out body of text, and a signature. You should use email in the same manner. A proper business email should be structured like a short letter. It should have a salutation, the body of the message, a sign off, and a signature.

Next time we’ll discuss email issues that should be a concern to larger companies. If your company doesn’t have a formal email policy, you should. Tune in next week to find out why.

Here’s to your success,

Q: One of my former employees has started a competing business and is calling my clients and trying to steal their business from me. Do I have any legal recourse against him?

– Brad J.

A: I hate to break this to you, Brad, but unless this former employee signed a noncompete agreement while on your payroll, there is probably very little you can do to stop him from wooing your customers. You should discuss the situation with your attorney, but unless this person is also breaking the law in some other way (using stolen trade secrets, for example) your attorney will probably concur with me.

Renegade former employees riding the free enterprise wave is one reason noncompete agreements are gaining in popularity among employers who hope to use them to help protect their business from competitive threats launched by former employees. Many employers are now demanding that key employees sign noncompetes as a stipulation of employment. While signing noncompetes usually doesn’t sit well with employees who view them as potential roadblocks to their upwardly mobile career path, many businesses will not hire a key employee without his or her signature on the dotted line.

A noncompete agreement is a formal contract between you and your employees in which they promise not to use information or contacts pertinent to your business in a competing situation. In other words, they agree not to take everything they learn working for you and put it to use for someone else. This could mean going to work for a competitor or starting a competing business of their own.

While not popular with employees, noncompete agreements are a good way for employers to keep key employees on the payroll and protect the company’s proprietary information. That said, do not go overboard with noncompetes: not every employee should be required to sign one. If an employee does not have access to sensitive information, customer or accounting data, or is integral to the overall success of your business, there is no need to have them sign a noncompete. The janitor, for example, poses very little threat to your business if he gets a job with a competitor. Your sales manager, on the other hand, can devastate your business by hooking his wagon to a competing horse.

Which employees should sign noncompete agreements? While the prerequisites vary from business to business, the following is a good general list. The term “employees” represents executive level, management, supervisory, and non-management personnel relative to that example:

- Employees involved in research or product development. - Employees involved in the design, fabrication, engineering, and manufacturing process. - Employees who service products made and sold by your company. - Sales and service employees who have regular contact with customers or sensitive customer information. - Employees with access to sensitive business information or trade secrets. - Most importantly, employees who have sufficient information about your business that would allow them to start a competing business.

Most business experts agree that noncompete agreements are generally a good way to protect your business. The downside is that noncompete agreements are often difficult to enforce and in some states, may not be enforceable at all. Many state courts have ruled that noncompete agreements are too restrictive on an employee’s right to earn a living.

In California, for instance, noncompetes are generally only enforceable in connection with the sale of a business and not for employees. In Alabama, noncompetes are generally enforceable in only two contexts: the sale of a business and in connection with employment - but even then the enforcement requires that there be a valid interest worthy of protection.

Some states require that the noncompete be signed at the beginning of the employment relationship and will only consider the enforcement of a noncompete signed after the initial employment date if the signing of the noncompete was accompanied by a promotion, raise in pay, or other event that elevated the employee to a more important role within the company.

To be enforceable, noncompete agreements must be reasonable on three accounts: Time, geography and scope. Regarding time, you can’t restrict someone from competing with you forever, so one to three years is the accepted time period for most noncompetes.

As to geography, you can enforce restriction in the general area where you conduct business, but you can not enforce the restriction beyond those boundaries. And for scope, the agreement can restrict certain actions on the part of the employee, but can’t be so generally restrictive that the employee won’t be able to earn a living working in the same industry in a noncompetitive position.

One interesting thing to note: noncompete agreements are not enforceable against certain “professionals,” like doctors, CPAs, and lawyers (who do you think writes all those noncompetes).

At this point, Brad, the best thing you can do is contact your attorney to see if you have other grounds for suit, then contact your customers and let them know what’s going on.

Explain the situation regarding the former employee, but do so calmly and resist the urge to tell them what you really think of this guy. Showing your anger to the customer is not going to help you keep their business .

Reaffirm your relationship with the client, tell him how much you value his business, remind him of your track record and level of service, then ask one simple question: What can I do to make sure your business stays with me?

Here’s to your success!