Google Alerts

Google has made many free services available to the public. The Google Search function is undoubtedly the best known but there are several others that you could be using in your everyday life.

A friend and I were looking at Google Earth together when it first became available. This program allows you a very detailed bird’s eye view of the world from the comfort of your computer chair. Some areas are much clearer than others and you can zoom in or out plus rotating your view. It’s an interesting way to look at our world.

Google does not discuss their sources very much but there is an aging factor to consider. My house (in eastern Oklahoma) was fuzzy and difficult to see clearly. My friend’s old house in Texas was crystal clear and we were able to see his car in the driveway. He had moved from there about two years ago so the view wasn’t current. As much as this program has been touted to agencies who want to market an area and use Google Earth as a selling resource, this should be considered. And from a buyer’s perspective, you might want to remember that the view may not be current when an agent uses it to show the area’s development. The paid version of this service may be more up to date than this free version.

The program you may want to start using for yourself regularly is the Google Alerts. This program will send you a once daily digest of web pages that have been created about whatever topic you chose. I was using it to keep me posted about the new Google Checkout payment service (I’ll discuss that in an upcoming Muse). Every day I would be told where new articles had been created as companies around the world shared their views and experiences about the new way to pay on-line.

This isn’t just for businesses, though. You could easily set up an Alert about any topic that you want to know more about. It is very easy to set up and delete or change the Alerts you want to see. Unlike some other alerting systems I’ve tried, this one is clean and doesn’t inundate your inbox with excess mail. You could set up alerts about your favorite personality, sports team, news item, fishing destination, vacation destination, your company or even your school. In this day of information overload, this may be one of the best free services you can find.

Put Your Visitors in the Driver's Seat

I was visiting a school office where the staff was desperately trying to find a driver for an upcoming bus trip. They had called most of their possible names and kept being turned down. The conversation was predictable, “Hi, can you drive a bus for us on Thursday? No? Thanks anyway.”

I stopped them before they made the next call. Their problem was they were focused on what they needed (a bus driver) and not why someone should agree to drive for them. They were forgetting their “unique proposition” or what was good about the situation for the driver.

They were using a brand new tour bus for this trip, not a typical school bus. There’s a lot of difference and that by itself could help them out of their predicament. I suggested the following conversation starter on the next call.

“Hi, we’ve got a new bus with a Caterpiller 300 horse-power turbo diesel and an Allison World 5 speed Automatic Transmission. The bus has an air-ride cloth driver’s seat, boosted a/c, arm rests, movable pedals, remote mirrors and cruise control. Could you drive this for us on Thursday’s trip?”

The next person they called said yes. Actually, he said yes loudly enough for me to hear from several feet away. This time they gave the driver a good reason to say yes. Most bus drivers don’t see this type of rig unless they drive for a tour company.

A lot of businesses do the same thing with their products and services. They just plop them out there with a semi-bashful approach, “Here it is and here’s how much it’ll cost.” They are relying on the customers to attach their own value to the offering without showing them how it will better their lives. This is a poor sales technique and results in many missed opportunities.

Most people, myself included, like to be shown exactly what benefits your products will give me. The power of the Internet is that you can show your potential customers exactly what they can expect. One of the most effective commercials I ever saw was shown from the driver’s seat of a car. All you could see was the twisting road ahead and hear the motor aggressively moving the vehicle through the gearbox. It was a white knuckle ride and worthy of the high price tag this Italian car demands.

Use the Internet to let your customers feel what difference you can make in their lives. This is an area where you can literally put them in the driver’s seat of your products and feel what they are missing.

Mike Myklin is an author, lecturer, and e-commerce owner who specializes in Internet Marketing. He can be reached through www.myklin.com where you can find archives of these articles.