Worker: I don’t know how to do that.  Let me find someone that can.

Customer: Sure

New Worker: I know how to do that, but I need approval first.

What the hell!!!  I know that’s my first response.  You work here but can’t do something or know how to do something and not empowered to do so…what the hell!!!  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to talk to one person to get this done.

Building relationships is key to any bussines success.  Part ot that is training your staff, empowering your staff, teamwork and a customer oriented staff.

I don’t think there is any more important aspects of a company than these traits.  Why?  Because they are interlinked.  I first must be trained in my responsibilities and what the company’s expect of me.  Once I’m trained…allow me me to make decisions with the training you have provided me.  After I’ve become confidant in my areas of responsibility, I then can work with other departments.  Then I start to realize all the components that make our company run.  Not only that but how one department effects another department.  After this truly comes the customer oriented staff.  Because they know now how all the cogs in the company makes the company move forward.  Then we can provide effective and reliable customer service…..in turn building relationships with our customers.

Customer:  I would like to exchange/refund this ball.

Worker: No problem! 

Customer: Thanks

Worker:  Was there anything else I could help you with?   Customer: Not now.  Worker: By the way we are having a sale on our new widgets!!  Once again we appreciate your business….see you soon!  Customer: Where were those widgets…………..

We do that with marketing concept; which will get us to market orientation.  So it cant just be or store is cleaner, prices lower etc…  What is the WOW factor that makes them pay the little extra, drive a little further to keeping come back.  There are many examples of this going on in today business. 

Wanna go to the movies with you hunky-hunky burning love….but no babysitter.  Harkins Theaters in Southlake provides daycare while you’re enjoying your movie.  You need new insurance and you hate calling for quotes.  Progressive insurance not only provides price comparison with other insurance companies; they also offer policies around your budget.  There are multiple companies that offer price matching from grocery stores, electronic stores and a slew of others.  These are great examples of market orientation.  However we can never rest on what we provide today….but what else can we provide or do that creates a new WOW factor in the future.

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Now, you have your blog. Here are some important things to do:

• Select your blog’s theme, or appearance
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• Create categories for your posts and links
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• Start blogging

So, to get started, read on …

Login to your blog. There is a link in the email you received that ends with …/wp-login.php. Visit that page and enter your username and the password from the email. It is wise to change that password to something more familiar to you. The best passwords use characters and numbers. The characters should be uppercase and lowercase. So, click on “User” and fill in all the pertinent boxes. Name and Nickname are required. Then, at the bottom of that list are two boxes for resetting your password.

If you have questions, you may write to PRblogs.org here: prblogsupport (at) gmail (dot) com

Next, in your Admin area, choose the Plugins link and “Activate” the “Spam Karma 2″ plugin. This will help protect your blog from spam. It is also important to, after you activate Spam Karma 2, to then visit the “Spam Karma 2 >> About” link to finish the activation. You’ll see that link in your Plugins area.

If you want to go further, in the “Options” and “Discussion” areas, check the box that requires all comments to be approved by the Administrator before showing up in your blog. Those two tasks should help make your blog fairly free of spam. However, spam is a reality of blogging. So, you may start receiving emails stating that a comment is awaiting approval. Just mark it as spam, if it is, and that’s all there is to it.

Next, it is probably best to create some categories for your posts. Click the “Manage” button and then click “Categories” to begin making new ones. You can even rename the first/default category. The simplest ones to start with are Public Relations, Personal, PR, Marcom, etc. As you continue blogging, you’ll think of new categories for your posts and you can create them along the way.

Now, the first post. Click the “Write” button in the Admin menu. Give your post a title and then fill in the post window/box below that. Choose a category from the dropdown menu on the right side. Those menus dropdown when you click the “plus sign” (+) in the bar.

For other instructions about how to use your blog, visit the WordPress Codex wiki. This is a collection of information about WordPress. It refers to WordPress version 1.5. You are using 1.6 and there isn’t a lot of documentation for this new version, but the information in the Codex is quite good.

If, under the Presentation section of the Admin area, you do not see any themes that appeal to you, there are more. Visit the WordPress Theme Browser and pick a new one. Not all of those themes will work in this version of WordPress, but we are willing to try them out. There is another list of 1.5 version themes that should work with WP 1.6. Check them out here.

Also, if you want to add more functionality to your blog, the following plugins are available at the WordPress Plugin Database. Plugins will be considered for inclusion in the blogs on a case by case basis. In a community environment, some may not be appropriate. The following contact form may be used to tell me about any themes and plugins you might like to try.

When you are through with this post, feel free to edit or delete it, then start blogging on your own!

If you have any further questions, please write to me and ask me for help.

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