Hey, Entrepreneurs: Why You Should Write in Friendly Tone

What is it with businesspeople trying to sound big? The stiff language, the formal announcements, the artificial friendliness, the legalese, etc. You read this stuff and it sounds like a robot wrote it. These companies talk at you, not to you.

This mask of professionalism is a joke. We all know this. Yet small companies still try to emulate it. They think sounding big makes them appear bigger and more “professional.” But it really just makes them sound ridiculous. Plus, you sacrifice one of a small company’s greatest assets: the ability to communicate simply and directly, without running every last word through a legal-and PR-department sieve.

There’s nothing wrong with sounding your own size. Being honest about who you are is smart business, too. Language is often your first impression—why start it off with a lie? Don’t be afraid to be you.

That applies to the language you use everywhere—in e-mail, packaging, interviews, blog posts, presentations, etc. Talk to customers the way you would to friends. Explain things as if you were sitting next to them. Avoid jargon or any sort of corporate-speak.

Stay away from buzzwords when normal words will do just fine. Don’t talk about “monetization” or being “transparent;” talk about making money and being honest. Don’t use seven words when four will do.

And don’t force your employees to end e-mails with legalese like “This e-mail message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information.” That’s like ending all your company e-mails with a signature that says, “We don’t trust you and we’re ready to prove it in court.” Good luck making friends that way.

Write to be read, don’t write just to write. Whenever you write something, read it out loud. Does it sound the way it would if you were actually talking to someone? If not, how can you make it more conversational?

Who said writing needs to be formal? Who said you have to strip away your personality when putting words on paper? Forget rules. Communicate! And when you’re writing, don’t think about all the people who may read your words.

Think of one person. Then write for that one person. Writing for a mob leads to generalities and awkwardness. When you write to a speci􀉹c target, you’re a lot more likely to hit the mark.

Make Less Policies for Your Startup - Wait, Why ?

The second something goes wrong, the natural tendency is to create a policy. “Someone’s wearing shorts!? We need a dress code!” No, you don’t. You just need to tell John not to wear shorts again.

Policies are organizational scar tissue. They are codified overreactions to situations that are unlikely to happen again. They are collective punishment for the misdeeds of an individual.

This is how bureaucracies are born. No one sets out to create a bureaucracy. They sneak up on companies slowly. They are created one policy—one scar—at a time.

So don’t scar on the first cut. Don’t create a policy because one person did something wrong once. Policies are only meant for situations that come up over and over again.

Entrepreneurs -- Why You Should Let Employees Leave Work Early

The dream employee for a lot of companies is a twenty-something with as little of a life as possible outside of work—someone who’ll be fine working fourteen-hour days and sleeping under his desk.

But packing a room full of these burn-the-midnight-oil types isn’t as great as it seems. It lets you get away with lousy execution. It perpetuates myths like “This is the only way we can compete against the big guys.” You don’t need more hours; you need better hours.

When people have something to do at home, they get down to business. They get their work done at the office because they have somewhere else to be. They find ways to be more efficient because they have to. They need to pick up the kids or get to choir practice. So they use their time wisely.

As the saying goes, “If you want something done, ask the busiest person you know.” You want busy people. People who have a life outside of work. People who care about more than one thing. You shouldn’t expect the job to be someone’s entire life—at least not if you want to keep them around for a long time.

Entrepreneurs -- How to Build a Rockstar Environment in Your Startup

A lot of companies post help-wanted ads seeking “rock stars” or “ninjas.” Lame. Unless your workplace is filled with groupies and throwing stars, these words have nothing to do with your business.

Instead of thinking about how you can land a roomful of rock stars, think about the room instead. We’re all capable of bad, average, and great work. The environment has a lot more to do with great work than most people realize.

That’s not to say we’re all created equal and you’ll unlock star power in anyone with a rock star environment. But there’s a ton of untapped potential trapped under lame policies, poor direction, and stiffing bureaucracies. Cut the crap and you’ll find that people are waiting to do great work. They just need to be given the chance.

This isn’t about casual Fridays or bring-your-dog-to-work day. (If those are such good things, then why aren’t you doing them every day of the week?) Rockstar environments develop out of trust, autonomy, and responsibility. They’re a result of giving people the privacy, workspace, and tools they deserve. Great environments show respect for the people who do the work and how they do it.

Making Decisions as a Startup: How to Avoid Simple Mistakes

“But what if …?” “What happens when …?” “Don’t we need to plan for …?”

Don’t make up problems you don’t have yet. It’s not a problem until it’s a real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.

Besides, the decisions you make today don’t need to last forever. It’s easy to shoot down good ideas, interesting policies, or worthwhile experiments by assuming that whatever you decide now needs to work for years on end. It’s just not so, especially for a small business. If circumstances change, your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.

At this stage, it’s silly to worry about whether or not your concept will scale from five to five thousand people (or from a hundred thousand to 100 million people). Getting a product or service off the ground is hard enough without inventing even more obstacles. Optimize for now and worry about the future later.

The ability to change course is one of the big advantages of being small. Compared with larger competitors, you’re way more capable of making quick, sweeping changes. Big companies just can’t move that fast. So pay attention to today and worry about later when it gets here. Otherwise you’ll waste energy, time, and money fixating on problems that may never materialize.

Entrepreneurs -- Startup Culture is the By-Product of Consistent Behavior

Instant cultures are artificial cultures. They’re big bangs made of mission statements, declarations, and rules. They are obvious, ugly, and plastic. Artificial culture is paint. Real culture is patina.

You don’t create a culture. It happens. This is why new companies don’t have a culture. Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior. If you encourage people to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust, then trust will be built in. If you treat customers right, then treating customers right becomes your culture.

Culture isn’t a foosball table or trust falls. It isn’t policy. It isn’t the Christmas party or the company picnic. Those are objects and events, not culture. And it’s not a slogan, either. Culture is action, not words.

So don’t worry too much about it. Don’t force it. You can’t install a culture. Like a fine scotch, you’ve got to give it time to develop.

Entrepreneurs -- How To Handle Users Response Towards New Product Features

When you rock the boat, there will be waves. After you introduce a new feature, change a policy, or remove something, knee-jerk reactions will pour in. Resist the urge to panic or make rapid changes in response. Passions flare in the beginning. That’s normal. But if you ride out that first rocky week, things usually settle down.

People are creatures of habit. That’s why they react to change in such a negative way.

They’re used to using something in a certain way and any change upsets the natural order of things. So they push back. They complain. They demand that you revert to the way things were.

But that doesn’t mean you should act. Sometimes you need to go ahead with a decision you believe in, even if it’s unpopular at first.

People often respond before they give a change a fair chance. Sometimes that initial negative reaction is more of a primal response. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear things like, “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” No, it’s not. It’s a minor change. Come on.

Also, remember that negative reactions are almost always louder and more passionate than positive ones. In fact, you may hear only negative voices even when the majority of your customers are happy about a change. Make sure you don’t foolishly backpedal on a necessary but controversial decision.

So when people complain, let things simmer for a while. Let them know you’re listening. Show them you’re aware of what they’re saying. Let them know you understand their discontent. But explain that you’re going to let it go for a while and see what happens. You’ll probably find that people will adjust eventually. They may even wind up liking the change more than the old way, once they get used to it.

One Customer Service tip Every Startup Owner Need to Know

In the restaurant business, there’s a world of difference between working in the kitchen and dealing with customers. Cooking schools and smart restaurateurs know it’s important for both sides to understand and empathize with each other. That’s why they often have chefs work out front as waiters for a stretch. That way, the kitchen staff can interact with customers and see what it’s actually like on the front lines.

A lot of companies have a similar front-of-house/back-of-house split. The people who make the product work in the “kitchen” while support handles the customers. Unfortunately, that means the product’s chefs never get to directly hear what customers are saying. Too bad. Listening to customers is the best way to get in tune with a product’s strengths and weaknesses.

Think about the children’s game Telephone. There are ten kids sitting in a circle. A message starts and is whispered from one child to another. By the time it gets all the way around, the message is completely distorted—to the point where it’s usually hilarious. A sentence that makes sense at first comes out the other end as “Macaroni cantaloupe knows the future.” And the more people you have in the circle, the more distorted the message gets.

The same thing is true at your company. The more people you have between your customers’ words and the people doing the work, the more likely it is that the message will get lost or distorted along the way.

Everyone on your team should be connected to your customers—maybe not every day, but at least a few times throughout the year. That’s the only way your team is going to feel the hurt your customers are experiencing. It’s feeling the hurt that really motivates people to fix the problem. And the flip side is true too: The joy of happy customers or ones who have had a problem solved can also be wildly motivating.

So don’t protect the people doing the work from customer feedback. No one should be shielded from direct criticism.

Maybe you think you don’t have time to interact with customers. Then make time.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark still answers support e-mails today (often within minutes). He also deletes racist comments from the site’s discussion boards and pesters New York City Realtors who post apartments for rent that don’t exist.

 If he can devote this kind of attention to customer service, you can too

How to Say “Sorry” in Customer Experience Failures

There’s never really a great way to say you’re sorry, but there are plenty of terrible ways.

One of the worst ways is the non-apology apology, which sounds like an apology but doesn’t really accept any blame. For example, “We’re sorry if this upset you.” Or “I’m sorry that you don’t feel we lived up to your expectations.” Whatever.

A good apology accepts responsibility. It has no conditional if phrase attached. It shows people that the buck stops with you. And then it provides real details about what happened and what you’re doing to prevent it from happening again. And it seeks a way to make things right.

Here’s another bad one: “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” Oh, please. Let’s break down why that’s bad:

“We apologize …” If you spilled coffee on someone while riding the subway, would you say, “I apologize”? No, you’d say, “I’m so, so sorry!” Well, if your service is critical to your customers, an interruption to that service is like spilling hot coffee all over them. So use the appropriate tone and language to show that you understand the severity of what happened. Also, the person in charge should take personal responsibility. An “I” apology is a lot stronger than a “we” apology.

“… any inconvenience …” If customers depend on your service and can’t get to it, it’s not merely an inconvenience. It’s a crisis. An inconvenience is a long line at the grocery store. This ain’t that.

“… this may have caused” The “may” here implies there might not be anything wrong at all. That’s a classic non-apology apology move. It slights the very real problem(s) that customers are experiencing. If this didn’t affect them, you don’t really need to say anything. If it did affect them, then there’s no need for “may” here. Stop wavering.

So what’s the perfect way to say you’re sorry? There’s no magic bullet. Any stock answer will sound generic and hollow. You’re going to have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

The number-one principle to keep in mind when you apologize: How would you feel about the apology if you were on the other end? If someone said those words to you, would you believe them?

Keep in mind that you can’t apologize your way out of being an ass. Even the best apology won’t rescue you if you haven’t earned people’s trust. Everything you do before things go wrong matters far more than the actual words you use to apologize. If you’ve built rapport with customers, they’ll cut you some slack and trust you when you say you’re sorry.

Why Startups Should Prioritize Customer Service

 “Your call is very important to us. We appreciate your patience. The average hold time right now is sixteen minutes.” Give me a fucking break.

Getting back to people quickly is probably the most important thing you can do when it comes to customer service. It’s amazing how much that can defuse a bad situation and turn it into a good one.

Have you ever sent an e-mail and it took days or weeks for the company to get back to you? How did it make you feel? These days, that’s what people have come to expect.

They’re used to being put on hold. They’re used to platitudes about “caring” that aren’t backed up.

That’s why so many support queries start off with an antagonistic tone. Some people may even make threats or call you names. Don’t take it personally. They think that’s the only way to be heard. They’re only trying to be a squeaky wheel in hopes it’ll get them a little grease.

Once you answer quickly, they shift 180 degrees. They light up. They become extra polite. Often they thank you profusely.

It’s especially true if you offer a personal response. Customers are so used to canned answers, you can really differentiate yourself by answering thoughtfully and showing that you’re listening. And even if you don’t have a perfect answer, say something. “Let me do some research and get back to you” can work wonders.