Source:
https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-rtnhn-141a1be

Do you make it easy for clients to do business with you? Are your systems designed to communicate with ease? It all comes down to good customer service. There are times when that can be the thing that leads a prospect or client to choose you or the competition.
 
Transcript
Michelle Kane (00:17):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today?
Karen Swim (00:33):
I'm doing fantastic, Michelle. How are you?
Michelle Kane (00:35):
I'm well, I am well, oddly perky. Must be the coffee kicking in <laugh>.
Karen Swim (00:42):
I'm oddly perky too. And I think that that is, because sometimes chaos forces you to roll with the punches. Oh, true. And you just are like going to roll with it. It's fine. I'm fine. <Laugh>
Michelle Kane (00:52):
Keep swimming. We'll get through <laugh>.
Karen Swim (00:56):
Absolutely.
Michelle Kane (00:57):
Well, I am, I'm excited about the topic today. We're going to talk about, how do I phrase it? The way we work, right? How do we communicate with each other? How do we communicate with vendors? And I'm, and we're talking about from the viewpoint of we are solos, but we are of course also small businesses and how that impacts, you know, how you accomplish your goals at work, how you get things done. You know, are you a project management person? Are you, you know, always on Slack, that kind of thing. Just our, just going to talk about some best practices. Oh, and maybe some pet peeves too. Who knows
Karen Swim (01:34):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Because small business is obviously quite important in the larger, you know Yeah. Ecosystem of getting things done and work and hiring people. But you have small businesses that truly look like small businesses because they lack a certain level. I don't even want to say sophistication, because that's the wrong word. Right. But they're missing components that you'll get from a bigger business. And as solos, we want to always make sure that we are, although small, that we're mighty. And that we are delivering service levels that are equivalent to our larger counterparts. And that we're not missing key, key things that we can be doing that can make us stand apart. Because you can be small and look totally small, and when you look totally small in the wrong ways, because you know, there's a difference between having a boutique or a micro agency where you get a higher level of personalized touch.
Things are not, you know, as templated where, you know, they're getting a level of quality and they're getting senior level help that they might not get. And then being small and looking small as in like you're an amateur. Right. And that, you know, and so I know that within our community, it's one of the reasons why our solo PR community in particular pushes back hard against the term freelance pr. Right. And I believe that it's because for so many freelance at one point in history did connotate someone who wasn't truly running a business, but was just kind of taking a gig here or there. And it felt like one level above hobbyist. I will say, and I, dear solos, I love you, but freelance no longer has that negative association. But I completely understand, you know, the distinction as well. And I never re refer to myself as a freelance PR person, but I'm also not offended if, if that's how somebody wants to categorize me, as long as they, you know, are treating me like an agency and paying me like, you know, they're supposed to and not pay me. Like, you know, I'm,
Michelle Kane (03:52):
Yeah. Just don't have this money
Karen Swim (03:53):
Experience and job. Yeah. Like, oh, I just need to buy a Starbucks today. Isn't that cute? And I don't really care. <Laugh>. Yeah.
Michelle Kane (04:00):
Yes. <laugh>. Yeah. And,  I think a lot of it has to do with communication between yourself Yes. And vendors between yourself and your clients. Just, you know, how that happens, what the expectations are. And you know, a lot of us who have worked either in-house or, you know, been employed by someone first, it's like, yeah, I call it office bootcamp, right. Because I came up, I spent my summers working in the accounts payable department at one company. So, it's like osmosis. You take it all in. Not that you say, well, this is how I'm going to work forever. But, you know, and then eventually working for an agency, you just take in like, oh, when someone asks you to do something, you let them know, okay, this is a timetable. It's like, yes. Common courtesy. Yes. Or, you know, you get to observe different systems and just then really mold that into your, the way that you work. Especially as most of our clients are probably not fellow business owners like us, for the most part. They're, these are people