RACI Times

Newsletter for Rolando & Associates Consulting, Inc.

Quote: Each profession talks to itself in it's own language, apparently there is no Rosetta Stone. See what I mean?

THINK LIKE YOUR CUSTOMER, NOT LIKE YOUR COMPANY.

Acronyms, technical terms, part numbers, model numbers, buzzwords, latest technology, most advanced system on the market, and on and on and on. All of these things and more mean almost nothing to most of your clients or prospects, so stop talking about them, stop making them the focus of everything your company does, stop confusing these poor people even more and start relating to your prospects and customers.

Prospects and customers, i.e., people are too busy with the knowledge they have to deal with on a daily basis, to be interested in any knowledge you have. Oh sure, once in a while you will get a customer that is completely intrigued by all the minute details of your product or service but there isn't much you can do to convince them to choose or not to choose your organization because they have most likely already done their homework.

Now that the wind has been pulled out of your sails, what do you do? Relate to them. Who? Your customers and prospects, i.e. the people. They are not Google (Internet Search Engine); they don't have information on every topic known to man readily available in their database (brain). Try to remember what it was like when you first entered the profession you are in. What are these people talking about? I've never heard that word before, what does it mean? Am I stupid?

Several years ago, when I joined the Air Force, I thought I landed on the moon. The military has and uses an acronym for everything to include using the rest room. I thought OK these people have all been brainwashed and I need to get out of here. What's worse is that most of their acronyms represented ridiculously long groups of words that when stated in a sentence didn't have any meaning either. Its almost as if some General a long long time ago thought, I will impress everyone by creating a new language and since the military is all about tradition, well you figure it out.

The nature of my business has given me the unique opportunity to see first hand how many completely different organizations interact with their prospects and customers. They give them way more credit than they deserve. Companies assume their customers are on the same page and have a firm understanding of everything the company offers, how transactions are handled, how problems are dealt with, how the company is run and so on and so on and so on.

Stop assuming! Because you could be wrong. Don't be condescending either. You won't have a lot of customers with that attitude. As a high tech consulting and marketing firm, customers often assume we have superior knowledge on every aspect of business. We can't do what you do, that is why you are here, that is why we are here. Supply and demand at its finest. It's a fine line making sure your customers completely understand your interactions with them without making them feel inadequate about their knowledge base or for asking questions you assume should have obvious answers.

GETTING TO KNOW US.

The Tampa Tribune has featured Rolando J. Pozo and Rolando & Associates Consulting, Inc. in this months issue of the West Tampa Shopper / West Tampa Chamber Spotlight. Every month a member of the West Tampa Chamber of Commerce is spotlighted in an effort to introduce themselves and their organization to the residents and business owners of West Tampa.

Rolando recently volunteered at the 2005 Krewe of Sant' Yago Education Foundation golf tournament. The mission of the foundation is to provide scholarships for academically deserving students at the University of South Florida, University of Tampa and Hillsborough Community College.

Rolando recently had the privilege to attended the Voces de Tampa Festival and Forum. This is a community auto biography showcasing the rich culture, architecture and history of West Tampa. Over a hundred people attended and it was a huge success.

SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS.

Verizon Wireless:
We have recently been asked by Verizon Wireless to create a new and simple product to enhance a process in the marketing department. If the project goes well, we may be able to implement the system company wide. We are honored to have been given the opportunity.

Green Iguana Bar & Grill:
Green Iguana decided it was time to give their customers the same feeling on the phone that they get from being at one of their locations or visiting their Website. We created a tropical, island, casual atmosphere with their on-hold phone message. Click here to check it out.

COOL STUFF

TECH TIPS & TRICKS

I Want To Listen To My Downloaded MP3's Wherever I Am Even If I Don't Have My Computer or Player With Me. Why Can't I?: Fortunately, anything involving a computer can usually be done in about 50 different ways. It can also be done even if the Movie / Music / or Software industry doesn't want you to. For the most part as long as you burn your music to CD (Say A Re-Writeable CD), you can re-rip the CD and do whatever you want with the mp3's because they are no longer protected files. There are many different software programs and ways of unprotecting your downloaded files but this is probably the easiest.

I Bought DVD Back-up Software But I Can Only Back-up DVD's I Made. Is There Any Way Around This?: There are tons of programs out there to help you, unfortunately most of them aren't real clear about the fact that they only rip unprotected DVD's. If you've already purchased DVD-Backup software, then try AnyDVD. This program unlocks whatever DVD you have. AnyDVD runs in the background on your computer hand in hand with your DVD Backup software allowing it to do it's job. I prefer InterVideo DVD Copy over 321 Studios DVD X Copy mostly because I'm looking for an identical copy without copyright warnings and such.

I Wish I Was Better At Finding Information On The Internet? What Can I Do?: First of all start using Google as your search engine if you're not already. Secondly, there is a new book call Google Hacks which would help you a lot.

Alerts!

Viruses: Basically the best advice we can give you is to shut your computer down, unplug it and leave it that way. You may still get a virus, but you won't know so it won't matter. Here are the latest little jewels to come out as defined by Symantec.com.

W32.Kelvir.AX is a Trojan that sends a message to all MSN messenger contacts on the compromised computer. DON'T GET IT!

Backdoor.Lingosky is a Trojan horse that opens a back door and allows the compromised computer to be used as a covert proxy. DON'T GET IT!

W32.Netsky.AI@mm is a mass-mailing worm that uses its own SMTP engine to send itself to Email addresses it gathers from certain files on the compromised computer, and copies itself to mapped network drives. The worm also downloads a copy of Backdoor.Nemog.D. DON'T GET IT!

W32.Mydoom.BL@mm is a mass-mailing worm that uses its own SMTP engine to send itself to the Email addresses that it finds on an infected computer. DON'T GET IT!

W32.Kelvir.AW is a worm that downloads a file and sends a message to all MSN messenger contacts on the compromised computer. DON'T GET IT!

W32.Nopir.A is a worm that deletes files on the infected computer and attempts to place itself in a shared eMule folder. DON'T GET IT!