Louisiana, and especially Baton Rouge, is very proud to be the home of Kleinpeter Farms Dairy. A short list of their accomplishments:
- Sustainable Business Institute’s Seal of Sustainability Award
- Department of Enviromental Quality’s 2010 Enviromental Leadership Award
- American Humane Association’s Free Farmed Certification
- One of the top 100 places to work in Louisiana
- Louisiana Wildlife Federation Conservation Award
. . . just to name a few.
(By the way, their ice cream is out of this world.)
Kleinpeter is one of the most admired companies in Louisiana for many reasons, and it’s easy to see why after visiting their Facebook fan page. They have an intense focus on customer service. Here’s a recent post:
This is an absolutely great example of why social media in general, and specifically Facebook, is vital to any organization today.
Content Customers – the Bane of Business
Mr. Hoge wasn’t mad. Mrs. Hoge didn’t have to go to the dentist for a chipped tooth. They still love Kleinpeter ice cream and are likely to continue supporting Kleinpeter’s products . . .
. . . which is exactly why Kleinpeter would never have heard from them!
Most of the time, you only hear from customers who are extremely enthusiastic or extremely upset. If a content customer runs into just a small problem – like finding a piece of pecan shell in their butter pecan ice cream – it’s usually not motivating enough for them to call your customer service hotline, write a letter, or even drop an e-mail. But Facebook is a comfortable enough medium that a content customer can drop a quick line to let you know you may need to check something.
A merely content customer isn’t likely to go through the effort of telling you how great your business is . . . but on Facebook it’s easy to write a casual note saying how much they enjoyed your ice cream.
Make it Right
Kleinpeter did an awesome job of responding to Mr. Hoge’s note. They didn’t deny the issue, they didn’t delete Mr. Hoge’s comment, and they didn’t simply ignore it. They addressed the issue head on, apologized for the incident, offered a free upgrade, and – here’s the impressive part – told the customer how they were going to make it right.
I Need a Response!
Again, it doesn’t seem likely that Kleinpeter would have lost Mr. and Mrs. Hoge’s loyalty, but how many other slightly discontent customers have companies lost because the customer wasn’t angry enough to tell them – just angry enough to stop buying their products?
In today’s business world of constant change and light speed operations, your business needs continuous, real-time feedback. If a customer loves your company, you need to know why. If they hate it, you need to listen to them. And if they’re merely content or only slightly discontent – you definitely need to hear them.
This is why Facebook is such a radically new and important way to communicate – it takes down the barriers of communication between an organization and its customers and lets you have one-on-one conversations.
Now excuse us – there is an incredible quart of ice cream begging to be eaten . . .
At Zalandas, it’s difficult for us to distinguish between small business consulting and small business IT consulting since the two overlap so much in function.
Advertising? You’ll need to compare your traditional forms of advertising to your IT options like websites, social media, Google AdWords, search engine optimization.
Communication? You’ll need to consider different email platforms and whether some forms of social media fit your organization’s culture.
On-site security? There are many different types of technology security to evaluate, like security cameras with live feeds on your iPhone, LoJack for your laptops, and controlling your current systems digitally.
Financials? There are all kinds of awesome ways to cut your costs using IT, from energy efficiency to productivity boosters.
. . . and this says nothing of human resources, operations, physical plant maintenance, fleet maintenance, or all the other facets of running a business.
So who’s smarter – the company that hires one vendor for IT, one vendor for marketing, and another for business consulting OR the business that partners with a small business solutions firm like Zalandas?
Our consultants say our clients are smarter.
(Of course, we’re a bit biased . . . )
Like V or Independence Day (or a personal favorite, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Earthlings awoke today to a strange and mysterious message from higher beings that will forever change our lives.
Citizens of Facebookia: we have irrevocably revoked your beloved fan pages. Henceforth, you shall like it . . . or you shall not. And you may no longer have your own interests or activities. You can only like a Community Page . . . or not. And these Community Pages shall not be tampered with by mere mortals – they are reserved only for Wikipedians. The high priests of Facebookia have spoken. That is all.
So what does this mean for us lower beings who only inhabit Facebookia? Three things:
- Facebook will feel more like the rest of the web
- We will see our interconnectivity easier than before (super important for advertisers)
- Facebook is taking on the same impossible task Google is attempting: organizing the inherently chaotic web
Feeling like the rest of the web
Think about YouTube, a blog post, or a news article – you have the option to like it, give it a thumbs up, rate it five stars, etc. Facebook is moving towards having you interact with the web through Facebook, and so is gradually blurring the lines between Facebook and the rest of the chaos out there. “Like it” is a small step in that direction. In this regard, it’s really more for Facebook’s ultimate goal (see #3) than any utility for us, the inhabitants of Facebookia.
Seeing our connections
This aspect is actually pretty cool. Let’s say you love black and white photography and want to find others who have a similar interest in your area. Since anyone can write whatever they want in their interests and activities, they could write “b/w pics”, “black and white photography”, “b&w photo”, or “i like takin black n white pics of places.” You’d never find them by searching strictly for interests.
With linking people’s interests to Community Pages, however, Facebook is forcing people to actually find a Facebook page that exactly matches their interest, and then they can “like it.” So now, you can go a “black and white photography community page” and find others who have your exact same interest.
However, this tool is really powerful for advertisers (like many of Zalandas’ clients). With Facebook, you can target specific groups of people. You can have your ad only show up in a select a certain geographic area, for a certain age group, with a specific relationship status, and very specific interests & activities.
So if you’re a new photography teacher specializing in black and white photography, you want your Facebook ads to show up on people’s Facebook pages who live within 50 miles of your studio and who express an interest in black and white photography. If you told Facebook to only display your ad for people whose interest was “black and white photography” you would miss everyone else who typed “b/w photography” as their interest.
Now, with a community page, you can select everyone who likes the community page and lives within 50 miles of your studio. Your ad is going to show up where it’s supposed.
Facebook vs. Google
We at Zalandas suspect Facebook is trying to rival Google for control – or at least position of central organizer – of the inherently insanely complicated internet.
Hold on – let’s do a Google search for “black and white photography groups online” and see what we get.
3.4 million results and not one of the first page results is an actual online group dedicated to b&w photography. We could refine our search . . . and refine it again . . . etc.
This is what Facebook is trying to cut out to allow people to organize themselves through a familiar Facebook interface, and allow everyone else in their world to see their connections.
Why It’s Neat and Why It’s Not
We think the result is probably going to be like the reaction to the first time we experienced the Facebook newsfeed – eerie, Big-Brotherish. But it will quickly evolve into another great way to keep up with everyone’s life and to process the insanely complicated number of connections, activities, and interests everyone has.
However, the crazy angle is that there is no way Facebook will be able to organize the net, though it may help us organize ourselves a bit better. And maybe that’s all Zuckerberg intends to do.
Or maybe this is the beginning of Brave New World with telescreens recording our every move.
Nah, it’s got to be more like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – just plain crazy, but somehow it works.
For all of you who have a reception area – heck, for all of you who have customers – why place a T.V. with cable in your place of business? I mean, your customers surely have cable or Netflix at home – why give them again what they already have?
If they wait for you or stand in line, why not make the most of their time and provide entertainment/education and do some marketing while you’re at it?
Cue Zalandas’ solution – a media viewer for showing videos, images of your clients or services, marketing material, customer education information, or anything else you would like to put in front of your customers but don’t have a regular opportunity to do so.
Our solution is very cost-effective and completely in your control. Once your flatscreen monitor and accompanying computer are configured with the media application, we train a member of your team. In just two hours, we’ve seen great looking presentations developed by team members who had never used the application before.
Highlights include:
- Easy to manage in-house by team member
- Able to do PowerPoint-like presentations with collages of images, education videos, customer videos, etc.
- Web-based, so the same presentation can displayed on any other computer or presentation equipment
- Easy to edit and upload
- Multiple presentations can be saved and switched throughout the day/week/etc.
Our entire package includes the following, but can be adjusted depending on your needs:
- 42″ LCD viewer
- Asus Eee Box PC
- Wall mount for display and PC
- Windows 7 operating system
- Web-based image/video application
- In-person and remote training for team member
And with this application, what it does for your customers is limited only by your imagination. Companies have used it to demonstrate how involved they are in the community, infomercials, to demonstrate their products and services, and show how much fun their team is at work.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come…stay tuned!
An old-style barber had been operating in the small town for years. One day, a salon chain store opened across the street and advertised loudly, “$6 HAIRCUTS!”
The old barber stared across the street for a long while. He then flipped the “Come in…we’re open!” sign to “Sorry…we’re closed”, grabbed his coat and hat, and walked away from the business that had supported his family for more than two decades.
However, the next morning he was back and a sign in his front window loudly proclaimed “WE FIX $6 HAIRCUTS!”
Quite a bit of our business has been “fixing $6 haircuts” for our clients, and quite a bit of our learning experience has been from trying to compete with those same providers. Zalandas offers comprehensive solutions to your business and technology issues. Don’t expect a $6 quick-fix. Expect a real solution – one that will be cost-effective and appropriate for your situation – that may necessarily include some repairs.
Zalandas consultants – your IT stylists. 
Can you imagine flying a plumber across the country to fix your sink?
“That’s an hour for the sink and another to replace the pipes, at $75 per hour, so $150…plus airfare and hotel, of course.”
No, we can’t either.
But what if your business is Coke bottling? All of a sudden you don’t want just any Joe (pardon, any Joe the Plumbers out there) coming to fix your water problems. No, you want the best in the business who have a proven track record and know a complex water system from A to Z.
So what does this have to do with Zalandas?
If your computer is running a little slower than it used to, you may simply want to get your local “IT guy” (no offense, you female techs) to take a look at it. But if your business depends on your technology system functioning (and whose doesn’t these days?), then you don’t want Joe the PC Repairman. You want dedicated professionals – preferably who have technology AND business experience.
Enter Zalandas. We have an entire team of professionals with experience in small business consulting, software development, networking, IT support, and IT management. This is who you want to turn to for business solutions.
Not Joe the Plumber.
A factory line shut down and the owner hurriedly called in an expert. The experienced consultant walked up and down the line, then marked an X on a piece of machinery. “Have your technicians tear into here,” he said and walked away. Within minutes, the maintenance personnel found the problem, replaced the part, and the line roared into life. Within the week, the owner received the invoice for $10,000. The owner demanded an itemized bill. The consultant sent this:
Drawing an X – $10. Knowing where to draw it – $9,990
Zalandas: technology consultants – not computer technicians. Big difference.
Technicians are the people who can work on, and hopefully fix, your computer problems. Consultants are the people who step back and assess the overall issue and offer a real solution. And “solution” isn’t a buzzword to make a person seem more savvy than s/he is. It should be a realistic, cost-effective, appropriate, implementable answer to the problem.
Another story (this time true):
A client’s network seem to become significantly slower as time progressed. The CEO asked Zalandas to “fix it.” The primary cause of the issue was that as the company grew, so did the number of users – and especially those that accessed QuickBooks, which functioned as the company’s bookkeeping system, customer relationship manager, project management program, and general company record keeping. To “fix it” Zalandas could have freed up resources on the server, but the real solution was to move the multi-million dollar business to applications designed to for each of those functions, instead of allowing QuickBooks to serve as a catch-all.
A technician would simply “fix it.” A consultant offers a real answer.
And sometimes a quick-fix is in order – again, every answer has to be cost-effective and practical. But the client should understand that whatever s/he chooses to do, they eventually have to move to the long-term solution. That, or constantly jump from crisis to IT crisis.
Of course, consultants are more expensive. But then again, you get what you pay for.
This is post 2 of 2 about 2 topics:
- A cheap lizard
- What Zalandas does
First of all, the name “Zalandas” has no real meaning, similar to Google (okay, it was rooted in some kind of mathematical term, but then horribly mangled) and Microsoft (really, “micro” + “soft” = IT?).
Second, we’re still trying to define to people (mostly our family) what Zalandas is.
Yes, we are believers in cloud computing. Yes, we strongly support Google Apps (and nearly everything Google). Yes, we provide IT networking services. Yes, we can fix computers.
But the story of finding the cheap lizard really demonstrates what Zalandas is: we provide custom business solutions through technology.
ZoJot’s Fun Inflatables, Inc. had approached us about their website. Then, the project was put on hold because they took a leap of faith and bought out a retail party store, drastically shifting their operations from primarily renting jumpers/moonwalks/inflatables on weekends to being a full-line party supply store, including seasonal product lines.
Everything was by hand because there had been no need for an investment of resources in an electronic system.
Enter: Zalandas’s innovators
ZoJot’s needed a point-of-sale system that didn’t require a huge investment in time or finances, was easy enough to be used by any current or future employees with minimal training, and was cloud-based so the owners could manage their store from home.
@ 8+ hours of internet research > NetSuite. Awesome. Did absolutely everything we wanted it to do. $25,000 to be up and running for the first year – then, you had to pay to renew annually after that. Back to the drawing board.
@ 12+ hours of internet research > BizAutomation. Great. Direct NetSuite competitor for only $100/mo. Priced right! Oh, wait – they don’t support barcode scanners. Rats.
@ 20+ hours of internet research > Imonggo. (See the blog post on it.) Finally! $30/mo for everything - deceptively simple interface, scalable, cloud-based, etc., etc., etc.
So after hours of searching, multiple phone calls, a couple of false starts, and a few missed expectations, we finally found the perfect fit for Zojot’s in the form of a cheap lizard. (Gecko? Iguana?)
What Makes Zalandas Zalandas
Not only did we find it for the customer, but we walked ZoJot’s through the entire process – creating inventory lists to be uploaded via CSV, how to streamline their operations and customize Imonggo to fit their business, purchased thePOS system equipment (barcode scanner, cash drawer, magnetic stripe reader, printer, PC), talked to their credit card processing company to switch over their processing through Imonggo, and trained the owner how to use Imonggo.
It’s not enough to provide an answer. We provide complete solutions. ZoJot’s owners no longer face the overwhelming task of keeping up with an entire retail store on paper, nor do they have to worry about investing thousands of dollars in a new POS system. They have a unique solution, cost-effective and appropriate for their business.
(Now, if we could only pare that down into a couple of sentences…)
This is post 1 of 2 about 2 topics:
- A cheap lizard
- What Zalandas does
The lizard
We are extremely happy at Zalandas to offer Imonggo to our clients. As the sites says, it’s more than just a POS system - it’s a retail management system:
- Web-based - if you know anything about Zalandas, you know we are very big in to cloud-computing or software-as-a-service (SaaS). No worry about backups, no hassle with software installation or updates, no worry about buying licenses, etc. You get all these benefits right from the start with Imonggo.
- 24/7-anywhere access - again, one of the joys of cloud-computing. Whether you’re at home, traveling, or in the back office at the store, you have access to real-time data. If you’re a workaholic forced to go on vacation, you can see how sales are doing at the store, second-by-second.
- Unlimited users (in the premium version) – and four levels of access so you can restrict who can do what
- Unlimited items (in the premium version) – with the ability to have multiple barcodes per item, multiple tags for easy sorting/reporting, and ability to upload pictures for each item
- Unlimited transactions (in the premium version) - no worry about hidden costs and fees
- Barcode-scanner compatible - (believe it or not, there are some POS systems that aren’t)
- Credit card processing (in the premium version) – with an Authorize.net account which your current credit card processing company probably works with. You can process credit cards from within the same application – no need for extra (expensive) equipment.
- Free/very cheap - the free version allows up to a 1,000 inventory items and 1,000 transactions, which is quite a bit for a small mom-and-pop. The paid version is $30/mo. That’s it – one flat rate, regardless of what you do.
- Versatile – it’s not limited to a retail store with thousands of items for sale. It’s great for nearly any kind of small business that works primarily in selling items or services immediately (vs. invoicing or extending credit).
And the feature we love the most: it is deceptively simple. You really wouldn’t imagine Imonggo could do the number crunching and deliver the flexibility we’re talking about from a glance at the home screen. There are three buttons at the top. Just three buttons. Stockroom (for handling all your inventory), store (for sales transactions), and office (to get sales reports and manage users). But from those three buttons comes a wealth of functionality and data.
Disclaimer: Imonggo is still very new, and there are some bugs or features which you would assume would be there but aren’t. However, we are impressed enough that not only are we pushing Imonggo to many of our customers, retail or not, but are resellers ourselves.
If you would like us to set up Imonggo for your business, contact us at info[at]zalandas.com. If you’re going to set it up yourself, please use our link which gives us credit for having brought Imonggo to your attention: http://www.imonggo.com/welcome/pos_software_20091014337
Oh, and of course it’s not a lizard – it’s just attention-getting to say “cheap lizard.” (Actually, is it a lizard? Gecko? Iguana? Are both of those lizards? We could Google it and be enlightened, but that takes effort and we’re kind of tired from writing a longish post.)
…in digital!
Everyone keeps saying thaey don’t understand what Google Wave. IWe can’t pretend we know either (we just got our Google Wave invites, but they’re still working out the bugs, so all we get to do is look at a blank screen and dream of the day when Wave is a real boy, er , application), but we’ll share how we’re planning to use th e features we understand Wave will have.
Project Management
We currently use Manymoom.com and we’ve played with the trial version of SalesForce.com (which was preetty cool in its own right for companies with a lot more sales people than ours). With Google Wave, Iwe envision starting an email (or email-like Wave equivalent) with a client about deploying Google Apps. IWe invite some of the members of our team to the EWave, along with the customer. We email another Google Apps partner (like Manymoon.com) about using their Google aPPS-compatible application with the deployment. We attach our Google Apps checklist (from Google Apps, of course) to the wave. We invite our clients administrative assistant who uploads a list of all the employees who will receive Google Apps account. We attach an email we received from the client’s current domain administrator authorizing us to tke control of the domain so we can use the same email addresses for Google Apps mail.
Now, theis process would have taken at least a dozen regular emails, three documents (either stored in email or elsewhere), and a lot of checking when emails were sent and what the status was of the project. With Google Wave, the entire conversation/project/process is housed in a unified place with a trackable history. If we have to switch who deploys the Google Apps, we simply invite that team member to the Wave, they look over the time table, and they’re up to speed in no time.
Which is to say Wave is all about communication, in all of its myriad forms and mutations. In the Information Age, communication is Critical with a capical C. We envision Wave will open up avenues of communication and collaboration, much like email has for the past two decades.
But of course, a tool is only as useful as the person who wields it. There will be people who don’t “get” Wave, much like they don’t currently “get” email. Unfortunately, you can’t cure stupid…
…in digital!
Everyone keeps saying thaey don’t understand what Google Wave is. We can’t pretend we know either (we just got our Google Wave invites, but they’re still working out the bugs, so all we get to do is look at a blank screen and dream of the day when Wave is a real boy, er , application), but we’ll share how we’re planning to use the features we understand Wave will have.
In a word, er, phrase: project management. We currently use Manymoom.com and we’ve played with the trial version of SalesForce.com (which was preetty cool in its own right for companies with a lot more sales people than ours). With Google Wave, we envision starting an email (or email-like Wave equivalent) with a client about deploying Google Apps. We invite some of the members of our team to the EWave, along with the customer. We email another Google Apps partner (like Manymoon.com) about using their Google Apps-compatible application with the deployment. We attach our Google Apps checklist (from Google Apps, of course) to the wave. We invite our clients administrative assistant who uploads a list of all the employees who will receive Google Apps account. We attach an email we received from the client’s current domain administrator authorizing us to tke control of the domain so we can use the same email addresses for Google Apps mail.
Now, this process would have taken at least a dozen regular emails, three documents (either stored in email or elsewhere), and a lot of checking when emails were sent and what the status was of the project. With Google Wave, the entire conversation/project/process is housed in a unified place with a trackable history. If we have to switch who deploys the Google Apps, we simply invite that team member to the Wave, they look over the time table, and they’re up to speed in no time.
Which is to say Wave is all about communication, in all of its myriad forms and mutations. In the Information Age, communication is Critical with a capital C. We envision Wave will open up avenues of communication and collaboration, much like email has for the past two decades.
But of course, a tool is only as useful as the person who wields it. There will be people who don’t “get” Wave for a decade or so, much like people who didn’t “get” email for a decade or so. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all…
