The ongoing Campbell’s soup recall of more than 72,000 cans is a wake up call for many entrepreneurs to have stricter quality evaluation procedures. More importantly, it prompted us to prepare in case we experience this same problem. Speed is very here because a defective product can trigger serious damages to your customers. Here are some of the important steps you should do when recalling a product:

Step 1. Assign a responsible person in your company to oversee the entire recall activities.

Step 2. Gather info about the product you want to recall such as bar code, description, size, manufacturing date or import date.

Step 3. Track the customers who received your defective product, inform them immediately stop sellingor using it. Depending on the problem, a product can be repaired, disposed, or returned to your company.

Step 4. Inform the public about your recall, no matter how small your business is. Don’t just rely on your customer service and learn to use all your employees to spread the word as soon as possible. Get in touch with the media to help you out.

Step 5. If you have a website, create a “Recall Safety Information” in your homepage and make sure it is very conspicuous to your readers. Maintain this information even after the actual recall. There might be some customers who don’t know about this yet.

Step 6. Assist your customers for any refund, repair or replacement caused by the recall. Prepare your team to deal with angry customers and ask them to be more patient.

Step 7. Be prepared to spend additional money for the recall to be effective. This is the price for being lax on your quality inspection.

Tired of spending countless hours surfing the Internet and looking for marketing lessons suitable for your small business? Don’t worry! We’re compiling the most relevant articles and news that will help your business succeed without wasting your precious time. Today, there are 10 marketing tips you may want to apply in your business.

1. The Trump Blog exposes the core of entrepreneurial success and it’s about finding a fit between you and your business idea.
2. Roger Dooley of Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog gives us 5 keys to selling to tightwads or customers who resist spending money even when the expense is reasonable and perhaps justified.
3. Learn about the two gynormous mistakes when it comes to marketing to women at WonderBranding.com.
4. Neuromarketing highlights the smart marketing move by Endless.com from “Free Shipping” incentive to offer “Negative $5 Shipping.”You may want to try this approach.
5. Paul William of Daily Fix elaborates why it is important to calibrate the meaning of “service” in your small business.
6. Fan of Seinfeld? Do you know that there are 7 marketing lessons you can learn from this sitcom? Download your free pdf copy of Seinfeld in Marketing now.
7. Brand Curve recommends that you research your brand name before you launch it. It will definitely save you money in the long run.
8. Richard Watson of Fast Company believes there are five trends that will transform the society – globalization, localization, polarization, anxiety, and search for meaning.
9. Jeffrey Phillips of Innovate on Purpose reminds us to always check our business assumptions regularly and never take them for granted.
10. Do you want to distinguish yourself? Rajesh Setty of Life Beyond Code says we should increase our capacity to increase capacity of others.

Not all entrepreneurs can get that much-coveted media coverage. It takes a lot of promotional efforts like press releases and other ads to finally ignite the curiosity of the media to highlight your company. And if you did manage to get their attention, your popularity might only last for a few days. Luckily, there are some practical ways to sustain your popularity, such as:

1. If you are featured in leading magazines or newspapers, you can photocopy that article and attach it in your brochures and other printed marketing materials. This will help build your reputation to your new and existing customers.
2. If you are featured in leading online publications like Entrepreneur.com or Inc.com, you should create a link in your website pointing to these sites. You should also include a “Press” or “Media” section in your site to save all your press releases, interviews, and media kit for interested parties. This will create a long-term impact as every new visitor has a chance to read the articles about your company.
3. Frame it. If you have an offline store, it would be better if you can frame a copy of your article for your visitors to see. In case you had a TV interview, you can also play it from time to time. This is a very common practice among restaurants.
4. Talk about it. As they say, talk is cheap. You can mention it to your key customers, suppliers, business partners, and even personal friends. Don’t forget to bring it up in as many conversations as possible.

However, you should be careful in dealing with these media companies. Startup Spark has cited about a new scam from a company called Platinum Television Group

Customer service has transcended from a mere support to become a very important function in every business, irrespective of size and industry. In fact, CNN Money reports that mid-size companies believe this is now a competitive differentiator to fuel growth.

However, there are still many entrepreneurs who do not appreciate the value of this service and continue to commit the 8 common mistakes that will eventually undermine their business performance. These include:

1. Failure to fulfill your promises. Once a commitment is made there must no excuses or apologies.
2. Lack of flexibility. Saying “that’s our policy” is one of the quickest ways to lose a customer. You should explore all possibilities to meet the demands of your customers, even if you have to bend some rules from time to time.
3. Selling substandard products. If you can’t bridge your product claims with actual experience then there is no sense continuing your business.
4. Not accessible to customers most of the time. If customers find it difficult to contact your customer service then don’t feel bad if they switch to your competitors right away.
5. Lack of training. As they say, winning is a habit and so is losing. If you have lousy customer service agents, don’t expect any miracle that they will improve without any effort at all.
6. Lack of proper manners. Basic customer service protocols like greeting your customers and saying “thanks”, “sorry”, and “please” do matter to most customers.
7. Inaccuracy. Misspelled names and wrong contact information can bog down your customer service and might vex even your loyal customers.
8. Ignoring complaints. Some customer service agents like to jot down complaints but don’t really act on it until a customer makes a follow up.

Despite the growing popularity of online advertising, some entrepreneurs still rely heavily on print ads given the nature of their business or target market. Whether you’re advertising on newspapers or magazines, here are some tips you should consider when doing your print ads in general:

1. Ask the publications for a media kit. This contains important info such as rates, sizes, readership, and profile of readers to validate if this is the right medium for you.
2. Use captivating headline. Similar with the Internet, magazines and newspapers are both cluttered with ads from different companies. Use the 10 surefire headlines formula that work as your reference.
3. Highlight you key benefits over competition and prove it. Cite some useful testimonials from your customers or statistics to back up your claims.
4. Motivate readers to take action. Give them a reason to act now such as discounts, bonus, freebies, or limited offers.
5. A pretty face can turn your readers away. GrokDotCom has a very interesting heatmap research about using pretty models in your ads. Although it used an online ad for the test, the lesson is still relevant for print ads.

Business intelligence is about gathering information on current market situations, upcoming trends, and competitor activities. If you think this applies only to big companies, think again. A new survey has revealed that poor intelligence results to substantial losses:

58% of surveyed business executives admit that business opportunities have been missed or problems have not been spotted as a result of not having access to relevant information at the right time;

The survey indicates that the Fortune 500 companies are losing approximately $250 million per year in missed business opportunities as a result of inadequate business intelligence.

You may not lose thousands or millions of dollars but the point is you will lose lucrative opportunities and might not stay on top if you don’t take business intelligence seriously. The good news is you don’t need to spend too much money on this, if you apply the following tips:

1. Check your competitors’ websites. Most businesses now do have websites and that is a rich source of competitive information. Important sections include “About Us”, “Press Releases”, and “Products or Services”. Don’t forget to check the profile and competencies of its founders or co-founders to gauge how well they know the market.
2. Internet research. A simple Google search will give you tons of information about the market trends and financial data of your publicly traded competitors. If you are looking for annual reports and financial info, check out Yahoo! Finance and SEC Filings & Forms (EDGAR).
3. Use your network. If you have friends or professional colleagues connected in your industry, why not give them a call or set an informal meeting? This is your chance to collect info not commonly available in websites like hearsays or daily operations.

In this game called business, information is power. The more we know, the better our chance of surviving this competitive venture. We should exert extra effort to know what our competitors are doing. At the same time, we should learn to protect our startup idea.

A good way to handle information is to go on stealth mode or under the radar. This is a popular strategy commonly used many internet developers because of some proprietary technology involved. Still, this is also effective across business sectors as proven in the recent price cut by Wal-Mart. Stealth mode is appropriate for the following situations:

1. If you want to surprise your competitors with a new product or service
2. When you’re first in the market for a particular product or service
3. When you need time to develop a new system or technology to make your product or service work
4. If you want to create a mystery or buzz around your product.

Keeping quiet is just the starting point of stealth mode. You should impose utmost secrecy all the time. Here are the common tactics used by many software developers:

1. Limit media access to employees, particularly those involved in your stealth project.
2. Ask employees, suppliers, customers, and even some VCs to sign a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to hold them liable in case they share any information to the public or media.
3. Keep all information and materials in a very secure place with only a few people having authorized access.

Some of the best business ideas started from gut feel and luck. In this very competitive period, however, we should go one step further to validate if there’s really a profitable market for our ideas. It’s time to do your market research.

Some of you may be a bit apprehensive about market research because it is commonly perceived as an expensive method. Don’t worry for there are economical ways to collect info without sacrificing quality. Check out the tips below:

1. Use Phonebooks and Online Directories. If you want to know how many businesses are competing in your chosen field, you can easily check phonebooks in your library and surf online directories like YellowPages.com.
2. Get in touch with local associations. These groups offer a great deal of information such as market trends, size of the market, unmet needs, best practices, and industry events. Although some require membership fees, you should not hesitate to invest in this group. This will also be a big help in different stages of your business from finding reliable suppliers to grabbing bigger opportunities.
3. Partner with a business research center in your area. If you have extra money but strongly feel you’re not qualified enough to do the research yourself, there are many facilities, usually connected with libraries, offering comprehensive yet inexpensive research services. Go to your nearest library and borrow this book Internet-Plus Directory of Express Library Services: Research and Document Delivery for Hire to find the nearest center.

Sometimes, having a good customer service might not be enough to encourage customer loyalty. It is important to deliver consistent customer service. Consistency is one of the essential ingredients of success, regardless if you want to lose weight, attract more customers, or achieve any goals. As entrepreneurs, here are 5 things we can do to make sure we’re consistently providing excellent customer service:

1. Make your employees as important as your customers. Remember this magic formula: happy employees = happy customers. Since they deal with your customers directly you need to make sure they are satisfied first.
2. Commend and reward your consistent customer service agents. You should also check with your employees what rewards are enticing to them. It need not be expensive as long as you show your concern to their well-being.
3. Consistently train your agents to improve their skills. Preparing your agents to react to worse-case scenarios will also prevent potential major problems from occurring.
4. Talk with your employees regularly. Fifteen-minute daily meetings can help you solicit suggestions for improvements and foster relationship among employees.
5. Turn your employees into friends. Hopefully they will turn customers into friends as well.

One of the many ways to grow your business is to cater to a new demographic. It can be from one age group to another or from male to female market and vice versa. While a number of entrepreneurs rely on gut instinct when expanding their businesses, consider careful planning. Below are the things you should consider:

1. Is there a Market? Validate if this new market really needs your products or if it’s just a faulty assumption. Do a simple survey and if you have the capital, consult with a research agency.
2. Consult Your Existing Customers. Even if there is a profitable market, consider seeking the opinion of your key customers. Adding a new market means there is a possibility that you will tweak or even revise your entire marketing plan. These changes might irk your loyal customers and force them to shift to your competitors, if for some reason you eliminate your core offerings.
3. Create a New Brand. If there is no strong connection between your existing market and your new target market, it is a lot safer to create a new brand. For instance, Lexus is the luxury vehicle line owned by Toyota. Still, you should always be aware of your branding limits.