Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

Schrock Innovations will be holding our first Preventative Maintenance Checkup Sale of 2009 this weekend to promote the grand opening of our new Computer Repair Service Center on the corner of 27th and Pine Lake Road.

Although we are “officially” launching the sale on this weekend’s Compute This radio show, you are invited to bring your PC in now and beat the inevitable rush!

There are Wordpress plugins out there to pull popular posts to your sidebar, but what if you have posts in a category that you want to MAKE popular by featuring it? I looked high and low and could not find anything that did what I needed, so I had it created for me.

The new Post Emphasis Plugin allows you to select one or more categories from your blog and pull a set number of posts form each category to your sidebar in a special section. Because the plugin is tied to your categories and not to specific posts, as you update important categories, the plugin makes sure your site-wide sidebar is updated with the latest links.

The Midlands Business Journal ran a special technology section on the 13th and I was interviewed for the article on green technology.

It was an opportune time for them to interview me on the subject because I was in the midst of replacing a ton of Schrock Innovations’ outdated tech equipment with modern, more energy efficient gear.

Fox News posted an article yesterday about Facebook changing its terms of service.

Facebook always claimed the rights to any content you place on the Facebook website, including the right to use the content to promote third party products or services. The change they tried to slip in under the radar states that even if you terminate your Facebook account they can still use the content you uploaded in the past.

We are still getting settled into our new computer repair service center, but we allowed a camera crew to come in and do a little filming for a commercial we are running to promote our new location.

Last month Schrock Innovations screwed up badly repairing a customer’s computer. Our customer had a Sony notebook and Best Buy said it would take 2 weeks for a warranty repair. The customer was going to Spain in a few days and needed the notebook. They brought it in to us for a speedy repair and in our zeal to provide a superior service experience, we fell flat on our faces.

There are only two ways for businesses to survive an economy in recession. They can lower service levels and hunker down for the economic storm or they can raise your service standards and position themselves to take customers from their cowering competition.

The way your company handles difficult situations is more important than anything else if you are working to take customers from your competitors. Here is what we did wrong, why the laptop did not make it on the plane to Spain, and why we ended up buying our customer a whole new Sony notebook on our dime. How would your company have handled this situation?

Lincoln, Nebraska is the 7th best metropolitan economy in the country right now. That is a good thing for Nest Furniture, because with their poor customer service I wouldn’t be surprised if they are still around next year.

Maybe the owner was having a bad day. Maybe his dog died. Maybe he had a fight with his wife just before we came in. The point of this post is that NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Small businesses need to understand that the quality of their service – especially in an industry as competitive as furniture – is what separates failure from success.

Here is the situation my wife and I encountered at Nest Furniture today as we tried to give them $500 for a pair of tables for our new service center. Needless to say, our order has been canceled and we will not be back again. How would you have handled this one?

Charity Adams appeared on the set of Top Affiliate Challenge to help contestants find WebJamAds programs that matched their traffic.

While she was on the set, Charity reconnected with her love to help people in person. Shortly after the conclusion of the show she took a position marketing for the Good Samaritan Society. She seemed to be on a good path until recently.

Now Charity is behind bars, and some might even think this is a good thing.

Online reputation management is more than having a website about what you do. Potential employers, business partners, investors, or even the girl you meet at the bar can learn everything about you with a simple Google search.

Anyone can write anything about you on the Internet, so its important to know what is being said and how you can enter the discussion in a tactful way that furthers your goals. The online information about you or your company paints a public portrait of who you are and what you represent.

Here are some examples of situations my clients have experienced in the past, mistakes they made, and what you can do if you find yourself in similar situations. Have you ever had to deal with any of these common online reputation missteps:

We are within days of opening our new Service Center and we need another full-time technician to ensure our customers receive the service they expect. You can apply online for the position on the Schrock Innovations Website.

We are looking for a computer technician with insane customer service skills. We understand those combinations are rare, so we are willing to pay accordingly to get the right addition to our staff. The person filling this position will be expected to:

* Work one-on-one with customers in their homes to solve computer problems
* Computer Repair in our Lincoln Service Center
* Help Customers over the phone and through the Schrock Desk
* Assist Walk-in Customers
* Conduct Advanced Data Recovery Procedures on Failed Devices
* Go above and Beyond under all circumstances to ensure our promise of insane customer service