conceptwist

I'm passionate about understanding business and creating powerful change and growth!

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Top Trends of 2011

Nice quick video on 2011 trends by The Trend Report

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What's the secret to train tomorrow’s technology leaders today? (It’s not what you think)

We have a problem.

It’s all around us.

It’s weaved into every part of our lives.

We can’t escape it.

There will be more tomorrow than today, more than anyone could possibly imagine.

INFORMATION

Wait, why is information a problem?

Information is everywhere, and when combined with intelligence, information becomes knowledge, and KNOWLEDGE is POWER. So why is that a problem, information is good, knowledge is good, right? Yes, it is good, but it has also caused the world to become flat, it has leveled the playing field. 20 years ago anyone from this country that worked hard, got through school, and applied themselves had a shot a job, and a pretty good job at that! That’s not true today. Our students are going to graduate and face competition from 10s of millions of excel proficient, technology savvy, college grads from all over the world. They are hungry, eager, their work ethic is astounding, their GPA is 4.0, and they are ready to do what ever it takes to get the job.

How will our grads compete? What is the secret.

Tomorrow we will compete with passion, purpose, & creativity. The secret is simply teaching tomorrow’s leaders how to understand “who” they are, and “what they love” to understand their unique passion. Then leverage that passion with VAST information, and simply CREATE. No longer can we compete by trying to do things faster, better cheaper. Our future will require much MORE. Gallop says that over 70% of the American workforce is disengaged with their work.

Why?

They are not doing what they love, they are not doing what they are “wired” to to!

That’s not going to cut it in the future. Our students need to learn who they are! What motivates them, what interests them. When that understanding is leveraged WITH technology and information, THAT will become powerful in the new economy. In the past business was created, and success built by doing things faster, and cheaper. In the future, business will be created, and success built by smart people leveraging their passions to create new innovations, technology, and solutions. Are we actually preparing tomorrow’s leaders correctly today?

It’s time to take action.

~Christopher Behnke

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The number 1 most important thing your employees need and are NOT getting!

What do your employees need to be “happy” and successful in their job?

How about.... xbox 360 in the lunch room, foosball tables in the hall, flexible work schedules, competitive salaries, bean bag chairs, open offices with big windows, free snacks, free drinks, lots of vacations, good coffee, on site gym, etc...

NOPE

all of these “perks” are kinda nice, some are really pretty wonderful, but

NONE of them will make employees happy,

NONE of them will cause company growth,

NONE of them will create a positive company culture.

In fact, in the wrong context tossing “perks” to your employees just to “make them happy” will make morale go DOWN & productivity drop through the floor! So what is the most important thing employees need then? strong LEADERSHIP! It’s probably not the kind of leadership you are thinking of though. I’m not talking about telling your employees what to do, or how to do it, laying out every single detail of their job. If you hire right, you won’t have to micro manage people. I’m not talking about getting up in front of everyone and compelling them to work harder faster better with pithy motivational talks. I’m talking about casting vision, communicating that vision to all, and helping each and every person on the team understand what “their” part of that vision is, why it’s important, and what they need to do to contribute in their unique way. Sounds simple right? Sounds like something obvious and natural.

It’s not.

I have had the opportunity to work in, or be involved with a LOT of companies over the years, and I have rarely seen this done well, and rarer still done well in the technology field.

It starts at the top.

Top management, needs clarity of thinking, they need to be aware of the business, the employees, and the competition. They need to be ready to make tough decisions with PURPOSE, and NOT AFRAID to take RISKS. They MUST (this is critical) MUST MUST MUST actually believe in the vision, it will obvious to everyone around them if they don’t. They must effectively & succinctly communicate that vision with everyone, no one should be left out, EVERYONE in the company matters, and should be able to contribute to that vision. It’s critical that every single person knows what his or her part is. How they can make a difference, how if they work hard, just like everyone else, all will succeed. At the end of the day, all of us want to know that what we do with our lives matters. The average person works 91520 hours in their life, or 3813 days.

That is a LOT of time.

We all want to know that what we do in that time matters. If what we are doing with those 91520 hours makes a difference in the world. Too many times companies send the message that their employee’s should be “glad” they have a job, shut up and get back to work. I believe this thinking is actually an excuse for leadership that doesn’t have or believe their vision enough to compel others around them that it’s worthwhile. It’s an excuse to not make the tough decisions, or take the big risks, but remain still, not moving from their comfort zone. Real leadership will be seen in people that obtain a vision, believe in it enough to do whatever it takes to make it succeed, care enough about their company, and the people around them to ensure EVERYONE knows and understands why and how they fit into the puzzle. Everyone plays a part, everyone is important, and everyone needs to understand how they can make meaningful contributions.

Are you casting clear vision from the top down?

-Chris Behnke

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If you don't have debate, conflict, & friction within your leadership team, you're not make the absolute best decisions PERIOD

Bottom Line -> If you don't have disagreement, friction, debates, and some conflict inside your leadership team, you and your team are NOT making the best decisions possible....  PERIOD... After chatting with a client about this issue, I thought I would post my .02 on it...  

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Chris Behnke on "What TV Will Look Like In 5 Years"

I was listening to a video Gary Vaynerchuck posted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX4Hntgn50o Here are my .02 on the subject...

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Chris Behnke on "Family Businesses"

My wife Alice Behnke, has started a business called Pick Pocket Molly...

It is an AMAZING idea, and she is an amazing CREATIVE person.  Pick Pocket Molly is a "family business" we just had our second very successful event, and after our entire family worked hard together to make the event successful, I was motivated to shoot this video post on the drive home in the car!  ;-)

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You might just die by these new rules... OR THRIVE!

Bottom line, the business world is changing…

no scratch that, has already changed… 

For the past 100 years it was good enough to have a solid product, market it through traditional channels, sell some, have a good outsourced customer service team pretended to listen… Then sit back, relax, and watch the revenue come in…  

Those days are gone… 

Every single day there are new examples of companies that get it, companies that understand the power of “listening” to their customers and the key actually care about what their customer wants.

In the past it was good enough to pretend to care, pretend to listen to your customer, have a cheerful voice and get them OFF THE PHONE as fast as possible! Success inside customer service organizations was measured by how few minutes you spent with customers when they called with a question or a problem.  Bonuses paid for the people that could get through the most calls in an hour!

For those companies there is a new problem: CHOICE and INFORMATION.

Not only choices, but vast information to go along side those choices, it’s good, it’s free, it’s accurate and it comes from people like you and me, people “we” trust.  I can’t think of the last time I didn’t look on yelp at the reviews of a restaurant or hotel before going there, or didn’t thoroughly dig through comments on Amazon.com before purchasing something…  Or browse through linked in, facebook, twitter, and others before hiring someone!  

You can’t hide anymore. 

If your product sucks, or you don’t “actually” care, uh I have bad news for, but if you do care, and your product doesn’t suck then you have an opportunity like NEVER before.  The same reason that companies that don’t get it are going to wake up to a harsh new world can be YOUR greatest asset! You can reach people, people that want to hear you, they want buy your product, and if you’re good, they are going to tell their friends.

I see new and old companies alike thrive or die by these new rules… 

Which are you?

-Christopher Behnke

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gary:

Why Startups Need To Start Thinking About The Thank You Economy

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Playing it safe? It may be the riskiest move you could make.

It REALLY pays off to play it safe right?  ESPECIALLY in this economy!  

You want to be careful not to be too edgy, not to be too aggressive, or too new school. You can't afford to offend people, I mean times are tough right?  Now is NOT the time to take risks!!  Right??

WRONG!  

Playing it safe is the Riskiest Thing You Can Do!

Huh?  What are you talking about, isn't taking big risks what got our economy into the jam we are in now?  Aren't the companies that "pushed the edge" the ones that got overextended and failed?  

Not even close!

Of course I'm not talking about taking dumb risks, overspending, or moving without strategy, thinking, or planning, that IS dumb, but I would argue that the very companies 10 year ago you would have said were NOT taking risks were the very companies that went out of business, or failed in some other way in the last 3 years... Do you think that GM failed because their cars were "cutting edge" or because there were "in tune" with what their customers wanted, building the perfect car for their customer, OR was the fact that the WERE NOT cutting edge, NOT in tune with what the people wanted.

For the last 25 years we have enjoyed a time of GREAT business growth, thousands of companies innovated | created | grew | expanded, and then.. held on...  

They worked hard, listened to the customer created some success, then they held on to that success and milked it for all it's worth. Rather than "rinse and repeat" they held on... It was ok though because it worked, at least for the most part, it worked!

But then something happened, the world got smaller, MUCH smaller, and faster, MUCH faster. Blogs, the internet, social networking sites like twitter and facebook created a platform where everyone, EVERYONE could talk, and everyone started listening.  Today is a whole new ball game, people don't "trust" brands like they used to, instead consumers turn to their community and talk about the products and services that work and don't work.  

It's free, it's easy, and it's everywhere.  

The business that still "don't get it" well, you don't need to worry about them because in 10 years they won't be here anymore. New technically savvy businesses that ARE listening will take their place.  The smart guys are listening, and creating products that are "risky".  Risky because they are different, new, and untested, but they ARE what people are asking for.   Companies like http://www.zappos.com/ have been massive success NOT because they sold awesome shoes, a lot of places sell the exact same shoes. They have created a very successful business because they listened, they cared, and they adjusted to meet the customers need.  PERIOD...  That's it! 

Think about it and start to take some BIG risks, it's probably the safest thing you can do for your business!

Thoughts?

-Christopher Behnke

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Get READY everything is about to change

Everything is about to change in the next 5 years...

A LOT

In ways NONE of us expect, and the best part, you can't plan for the change, only for how the change happens...

For the last 100 years, people have relied on, well, reliability...   The smart guys were the ones that didn't take big risks, didn't invest in the (high risk / high return) stocks, didn't buy the product when it first came out, and waited patiently for safe opportunities to come to them.  During that time if you were one of the lucky few, one of the ones that had the money, power, or position to have control, your message or product would be heard. The masses didn't have a choice and accepted your product, it was fine. It was a ok because it was all they knew, and they were happy...   

Those days are over, you see it already, even in the last 10 years entire industries have been created, evolved, and gone away...  I'm working from Starbucks this morning, on a thing called an ipad, a year ago no one ever heard of an "ipad" the cell phone in my pocket is more powerful that a multimillion dollar supercomputer from only few years ago.  I'm connected to a free high speed connection to the internet where virtually limitless information is only a fraction of a second from my fingertips. By the way, this information is fast, reliable, accurate, and updated like we never could have imagined even just 10 years ago. 

So that's the change then, more faster, better information at your fingertips...  

NOPE

NOT even CLOSE

The change that I'm talking about, the change that will continue to shock each one of us over and over again from now on, is the fact that SINCE we have an ever increasing ability to tap into this information WE, all of US, have the power to select the stuff that actually matters, the stuff that we really care about, and the stuff that is actually accurate.

For the first time in the history of the world EVERYONE has an opportunity, everyone has an "at bat", 20 years ago if you wanted to reach millions of people with your informational video about something your passionate about you would have to spend millions of dollars, today, the HD camera on your iphone, and a free upload to youtube and your done!

DONE

For those of us that create content, content that people care about, have a message that the world "wants" to hear, we have a chance to tell/share/give/ and SELL, it's fast cheap, easy, and our stuff is good, if it's what people want.  IT WILL SUCCEED.

Do you think that Apple will always have the coolest cell phones, are we even gonna have cell phones, we will always be using Google for internet searches, or Microsoft on our desktop computers, do you think we read books with paper, or listen to music purchase on a disk???  Of course not!  People have a power to "choose" like they never have before, and it's a process that today happens naturally, the old power of money and position are quickly being replaced with the power of a messages, content, and products that people care about.  Do you forward an email that is lame, do you tell your friends about a youtube video that sucks, do you tell everyone on facebook about a product that is just mediocre?  But you WILL tell everyone, and tell them in new effortless ways when you find something you DO care about, that DOES help or solve ore remove a problem for you...  That is powerful...

That Changes Everything....

Thoughts???

-Christopher Behnke

I would love your feedback, I'm not afraid of criticism, you can't hurt my feelings so please let me know what you honestly think about the stuff I write about... If you have some feedback PLEASE post a comment or shoot me an email at [email protected]

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The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency

Bill Gates

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Hire character. Train skill.

Peter Schutz

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Pick Pocket Molly Site Launched

One of my favorite brands I have had the opportunity to work with is Pick Pocket Molly. This project has been SOOOO fun, "a lot of it is because it's my wife's new business :-)" But mostly it's because of Alice's awesome passion.  She really believes in the charities that's this business will hopefully allow her to support.  She is sooo passionate about clothes, and fashion, and being able to really find a good deal, and value.  

Passion plays such a HUGE role in making and building a brand like Pick Pocket Molly. Working with Alice to learn how to leverage social media tools like facebook and twitter has really been fun, and of course, since Alice is so awesome, she has been a blast to work with...  

If you have a few min, check out her Awesome new online presence...

http://pickpocketmolly.com 

-Christopher Behnke

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What is the ONE thing you would do if you had more time?

What’s the one thing you wish you could do, but don’t have enough time.

Take an art class, write a book, learn a language, create that scrapbook of your family vacation, heck even just clean our your garage!  You know what the "IT" is, in fact, I bet the second you read the question “What’s the one thing you wish you could do, but don’t have enough time.” the "IT" popped into your head.  

If your like me, a lot of stuff falls into the “I wish I could do” bucket.  I made lists for it, thought about it, prayed about it, wished about it, but at the end of the day NOTHING changed, NOTHING happened, and I didn’t get any closer to “doing” anything.  

The problem is that as humans the natural tendency is to get stalled up on one thing or another, and then sit their paralyzed by everything that’s not right in the world all the while spending time coming up with dozens of excuses as to why it won’t work or why we are too busy.  Honestly, its a fair bet that if we spent (myself included) all the time we normally devoted to justifying why we can’t get something done, we could have gotten “IT” done!

Another Question:

How much of your “I wish I could” list could you do if each month you could spend a laser focused, uninterrupted, dedicated 25 - 30 hours working on nothing but the “I wish I could” list.  I bet you could get MUCH more done on your list in 2 months than you have been able to in the last 2 years!  But Chris you say, that’s ABSURD, you have no idea how freaking busy I am, I have the kids, the job, the soccer practice, the karate lessons, the extra project at work, etc.  There is no WAY I could spend that much time a month!

Really??

You CAN, in fact, I bet you could without even stopping ANY of that “stuff” that makes you so busy by doing 2 simple things (and #1 isn’t even required).  (All that “stuff” by the way probably isn’t as important to you and your family as you think it is, but I’ll write about that another time)

1.  CUT OUT TV - Ok, I know this is gonna be super hard for some of you guys, and maybe you should slowly cut back, personally I think quitting cold turkey is probably the best option, get it overcwith FAST, in a week your gonna be shocked by how little you miss the shows you “had” to watch before, you CAN cut back slow, but it’s more painful (something about cutting the tail off the Australian Shepherd puppy 1 inch at a time or something...) Seriously though, ask yourself what would happen if you didn’t watch that episode of American Idol, 24, or Lost (ok, ok, ok those were all the shows that I watched this last season, ok guilty) but really, what would happen??  Oh but Chris I unwind by watching “my” shows you sa, its stress relieving.  I say that you would be much happier “unwinding” by doing what’s on your “I wish I could do” instead!  If your doing what you love, you will naturally have MORE fun, and have LESS stress!

2.  Set a timer, alarm clock, or something else to notify you at exactly 9:30PM (or whatever time works best for you).  Next, now this is KEY, when that alarm goes off, stop what ever you are doing, lock yourself in a room with no distractions, and work on your project (from your list of course) for exactly 60 min (or more if you are a night person).  Do that 6 days a week, and in 2 months you will have been able to spend 48 hours laser focused on ONLY the “I wish I could list”.  I don’t know what’s on that list for you, or what you have done on that list in the last 2 years, but I’m betting you will get more, SIGNIFICANTLY more,  in those 60 days then the last 2 YEARS.  

Sound simple?  IT IS! 

Some people might say, I don’t have 60 min, or I can’t stay up that late, or I have demanding family life, or job, or...  To which my reply is quite simply.  If you can’t spend a dedicated 60 min a day on your list, the stuff you WISH you could do, the things you dream about at night but just can’t seem to find the time to start working on, then, well, you need a new freaking list, the one you have sucks.  

That's the truth,  

If you have something your passionate about spending 60 min on it is exiting and a joy, and will “feed” you with energy...  I know I know some of you still think its not that easy, but I challenge you to try for 2 months and let me know if it doesn’t change your whole outlook on the “I wish I could” list....  I would LOVE to hear how this did or didn’t work out for you, please email me and let me know!! 

Good Luck!

-Christopher Behnke

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Time Management Tips #2 - Getting Rid of CRUD

Over the last few weeks I have written about Time Management, spending a little time on the each of the 3 things that have personally made a HUGE difference in my life. Today I want to touch on the 3rd thing that I think has made a big difference for me personally.

Getting rid of the crud.

Let’s face it, quite simply your average day is packed with extra crud you don’t really need to do, don’t care about, and honestly sometimes even don’t want to do.  The idea of getting rid of the crud is not new, and certainly not easy.  There  are a lot of great approaches to cutting the extra stuff out of your life, and I don’t want to discount them, but I’m going to just boil this down to a simple principal and approach to implementing it that has really worked well for me.

The principal is 80/20 

Everyone is familiar with the 80/20 principal, examples like 80% of the profit of a company is generated by 20% of the customers, and in turn 80% of the customer complaints are generated from 20% of the customers (almost always NOT the same that spend the 80% of profit), 80% of the apples from from 20% of the trees, 80% of the stress comes from 20% of the problems and so on.  Of course its not always exactly 80/20 but the concept is consistent that most of the benefit or trouble comes from a disproportionate percentage.  When you apply this to your task load throughout the day you will find that 80% of what you spend your time on is only providing 20% of the value, or really the inverse of that is what is the most compelling.  

20% of what you spend your time on during the day produces 80% of the desired results.  

Wow, you probably think that’s overstating it, everyone is different of course, you might not be 80/20 but I bet you are, and if your like me, your naturally WORSE than 80/20!  

The idea is to try and identify the 20% that produces 80% of results and figure out how to replicate that 20% throughout the day.  There are a lot of things I do regularly to try and evaluate, understand, and replicate that 20%, but in an effort to keep this short I’m only going to mention this simple EASY trick.

I spend the first few min of each day writing a list of no more than 6 things I need to accomplish that day.  Honestly 6 is probably too many, but 6 IMPORTANT things that you want to accomplish that day is a freaking AWESOME start.  I try and think of it like this, “If I could ONLY do 6 things today, which would they be?”  Limit to 3 personal and 3 for work to start with.  You will want to try a couple different things to see what works best for you, but I simply make a list at the start of every day, and email it to myself.  Just the act of writing it down and sending it off causes my brain to file it away for easy retrieval throughout the day.  That’s it, plain and simple, I honestly think the reason this helps me get closer to my 20/80 is simply because it forces me to “think” about what I really want to get done, and then subconsciously I will think about those priorities throughout the day.  

Over the last few years, I have spend a TON of time reading books, blogs, magazines, you name it trying to figure out how to “get more hours in the day” and I have really benefited from these simple ideas.  Of course everyone is different so you need to try and see what things work for you, BUT, if your anything like me you will LOVE this stuff.  In any case I would love to hear what you think of these ideas and if they did or didn’t work you...  Shoot me an email if you get a chance and let me know!!

Christopher Behnke

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Time Management Tips #1 - Check Ins

A few days ago I wrote an article about time management, “Batching” specifically. Another very powerful, but absurdly simply tool is to do a simple scheduled "check in".

Quite simply ask your self every 2 hours if what your doing is important.

You might say “Chris, what on earth are you talking about, what do you mean ask your self?” Well, what I mean is quite simply, ASK YOURSELF. Literally put a reminder popup in your phone calendar app that will beep and ask you every 2 hours one simple question. Is what your working on right now actually important? On my phone I actually will shake it up a bit, and put things like the following:

Hey Chris, are you goofing off right now or working? 

Are you inventing something to work on to avoid what you should be working on?

Really Chris, do you actually need to do what you are doing right now? 

etc...

What an odd suggestion right?

Nope.

It works, and here's why, unfortunately for most of us, built right into our fallen nature is the tendency to procrastinate and or flat out avoid things that are difficult, time consuming, or generally taxing in any way. We aren’t LAZY oh no, our society has done a good job building into each one of us that its important to by busy (otherwise your lazy) BUT let me assure you, BUSY doesn’t necessarily mean productive. This is an epidemic in our culture, you can see it EVERYWHERE!! I bet if your like me you can name a dozen people you work with or interact with on a daily basis that are SUPER busy (running around, constantly telling you they are busy, always on the phone, checking email 400 times a day) in the end you know they simply don’t get squat done.

Running around the office with a cellphone glued to the side of your head doesn’t = getting something done!

When it comes right down to it, most of us will work hard during the day checking email, writing up stuff, talking on the phone, going to meetings, (MEETINGS UGG need a whole blog post just on meetings), but so much of that time is truly not required to do a killer job at your job! Accomplishing ONLY the bare minimum of mundane trivial tasks is very important if you want to be able to spend the hours needed on REAL work, but since we are so used to checking the emails, stock prices, news stories, or whatever else during the day we often don’t have time to get to the things that we really need to do. What I have found is that by simply asking the question “do I need to do this” or even “if this is the ONLY thing I do today will I be happy” question causes me to get laser focused on what I really need to do that at that time, the silly stuff just becomes apparent, and I get back to what I really should be working on, its just that simple! Bottom line, try this, just simply set a reminder to pop up every 2 hours, just to get your attention and ask you if what you are working on is ACTUALLY important. You will be shocked (I know I was) how many times, if your honest with yourself, you will answer no!

Try it out and email me if it worked or didn’t work!! If you honestly try this I’m sure it will help, BUT if not email me and let me know why it didn’t work! I would love to understand exceptions!

~Christopher Behnke

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why 2011 is "the" year when customer service goes social

It's pretty much an agreed fact that high quality customer service is key to business success. Quite simply, people are loyal to businesses that provide excellent service.

It used to be the traditional brick and mortar stores held the advantage because they provided personalized, face to face service. But with the advent of the Internet and thus online shopping, online stores are giving traditional shops a run for their money. In the last few years more companies have invested heavily in their systems in order to provide quality service and make sure all their customers’ "needs" are met. 

I would argue the whole world has changed.  The use of social media applications like Facebook and Twitter have allowed businesses to reply to queries almost instantly. It's no longer "good enough" to have "good customer service".   People are looking for a company they can relate to, they want a "relationship".  This concept of having some kind of "relationship" with a retailer is TOTALLY foreign to most businesses out there.

For the companies that "get it" 2011 will be a killer year.  

The number of "choices" we have today is astonishing.  Why are they gonna by from you rather than the guy down the street?  RELATIONSHIPS, because you care... If you "really" care and show it through killer "relational" customer service, the customer will see that, trust that, and buy; again and again and again.

Here is the best part, because social networking is what it is, not only with they buy, but they will tell all their friends how they found YOUR company, and how great you are, and all their friends, and "their" friends will buy as well.

Don't miss out on 2011, its the year when businesses just like yours will realize that customer service really means creating a relationship with the customer.  Don't fear social networking, embrace and LEVERAGE it!

Let's make 2011 a killer year!  Good luck!!

-Christopher Behnke