Here are a couple of quick examples of companies using Twitter for customer service, business-to-consumer marketing, business-to-business marketing, and public relations:

Customer Service – The massively popular online shoe store, Zappos.com, takes customer service to an all new level of buying utilizing Twitter as a line of communication with its customers.

Business to Consumer Marketing – The Ford Motor Company is posting in 140 characters or less to promote their new Fiesta model. You can learn more about it at www.fiestamovement.com.

Business to Business Marketing – Duct Tape Marketing started a few years ago with their book and website that catered to helping small businesses get more customers. Now, they use Twitter as part of their marketing tool belt to reach out to businesses that need their services.

Public Relations – The company that sets the standard in womens’ and mens’ accessories, Louis Vuitton,  uses Twitter to reach out to bloggers in the Paris fashion industry.

These are just a few examples of using Twitter for business. Be sure to take a look online for more examples of how you can use Twitter for your business.

One of the best ways to start building a following in Twitter is to start sharing news, stories, and tips within your industry. By doing this, you will become the go-to source for your prospective clients, and you can continue to nurture your relationship with existing clients. By sharing great content with the Twitter community, you can begin building and increasing consumer confidence in your brand. Of course, as you are sharing news, stories, and tips, you can also mix in links to your own content such as  press releases, articles, blog posts, book marks, new web site content, videos etc… Giving out great free content is one of the best ways to gain loyal followers on Twitter. Just make sure that you do not beat them over the head with your sales message when sharing your links and content.

In addition to posting news, stories, and tips within your industry, make sure you tell your brand’s story as well. Share insights into your company’s successes, challenges, pitfalls, and decisions. Also, do not forget to keep a human element to the posts. That way readers feel like they are dealing with people and not some impersonal corporation.

In order for your business to save, it must obey the simple, yet profound principle of spending less than it makes. Large expenditures or one time costs must be analyzed and justified. All incoming bids and pricing must be compared. All expenditures should be negotiated and renegotiated with vendors when possible. In other words, don’t bite on their first estimate or offer.

The longer a company has been in business, the more things need to be analyzed because the accumulating costs of doing business rarely get reevaluated. Here are some smaller costs that often go overlooked when it comes to expenditures and lowering your overhead:

1. Cell phone plans, features, and minutes
2. Delivery charges
3. Shipping costs
4. Office supplies
5. Printing costs
6. Internet services
7. Computer repairs and support
8. Break room supplies
9. Add on charges for phone service

Now please keep in mind, that what we do not want to develop is a penny pincher mentality, which differs from the penny saver approach. The penny saver retains customer service and product quality whereas the penny pincher will sacrifice value and customer experience in order to save money. The penny saver is not cheap nor a scrounger. The penny pincher will cut costs with little consideration to the future outcome. The idea here is not to constantly change suppliers in an effort to save a couple of dollars.

So when you are making budget decisions, take a long look at how the additional savings will actually benefit the company and also consider if it will hurt the company in any way. Refuse to compromise your service and quality. The savings just are not worth it.

When it comes to good work habits, they can be discerned pretty early in life. Take the local teenage paperboy for example. The local paper has to be delivered 365 days a year whether it’s rain, snow, hail, sleet or shine, and did I mention that those papers are not exactly light. They experience the mundaneness of delivering to the same customers on the same exact route everyday, and they better not be late or they won’t get tipped on payday.

Most kids don’t have the discipline and constitution that it takes to perform such a job. The job needs to be done everyday whether they like it or not. If they do fail to show up, they need to have a backup in line to get the job done. The job always has to get done, and it is their responsibility to see to it that it does. Social peer pressure just doesn’t have a place in such a schedule.

Another challenge is that they also have to try to reach out to new prospects if they want to increase what they make each month. A successful paper boy gets that job done constantly and without excuses. These are the types of people that you want on your team regardless of position. Employees who take ownership of their position and job responsibilities.

If they failed when they were younger, to grasp desirable work ethics, this failure can continue to make tracks throughout their adult career. When you hire for your company, make sure you look for the “paper boy” in everyone before making them part of your winning team.

Being in business is all about having prospects to sell to, and if you do not want to sell then, you need to hire someone who does. It is your job as the owner to keep the cash register ringing whether you are directly responsible for closing the deal or not. Before you hire someone to create your first product or before you hire any staff to perform services for customers, hire someone whole sells well. Make sure that they are friendly, passionate, courteous, persistent, respectful, dedicated, and above all, marvelous closers. Think about it. When a new home builder begins developing homesites, the first thing that they do is get some salespeople on the property so that they can start selling some houses. They do not even have the model homes built yet, but they know that they have to sell to start  the construction workers building the homes and to keep the loan officers busy closing loans.

In reality, your entire staff needs to sell the customer in one form or another. Certainly your secretary will not be presenting prospects with proposals and quotes, but they will often be the first impression of your company to visitors of your brick and mortar business. Once the prospective client has walked in the door, they have already begun judging your company and deciding if this is who they want to do business with. The service and courtesy that your employees offer to prospects and customers goes a long way in the sales process.

One company that I have always been impressed with is Lexus. If you ever buy a  vehicle from them, it is a true experience in red carpet service and sales. Rudy, our salesman, was a pleasure to deal with and that’s saying something because I can’t stand most car salesmen and dealerships. Because he did such a great job working with us, I would certainly buy another vehicle from him and would have no problem referring him more customers. Good salesmen and service truly keep the register ringing.

So, after you find your first great salesman, don’t hesitate to get your second.