OK...Your turn..."Honest" Solutions for Business Owners

Partially right. I own the sim. It's also my residence, and that of my husband, and I have home rentals on it.

All of the businesses combined do not make the tier payment. I would like for it to get closer to making the tier payment.




Given all said here, I doubt you really need to make trip, other than curiousity at this point

But if you do, and my cat's running around...be careful!!!

lol...No, truly, I can't say that I have anything a dragon would be interested in. And yes, I do allow non-human avs...*looks around* occasionally, you may even see a gold dragon sitting on the cave which overlooks the sim

Good thought, about adding that bit.

Not quoting the rest of your post because it either doesn't need it, or I haven't digested, or haven't decided

Bingo!

No offense, Keira...but you are not Honeybear's target.

You can't recreate your whole mission to appeal to one person. or 10....or 100. You can't "force" a non-mall shopper to come to a mall....nothing you do to your mall today is going to appeal to them.

You find out who your whole mission appeals to....and go after them. You use what you already have and form your niche and groove.....listen to the signs and signals you are given about what is working.....then work it....with the tools that work for you.

Or....you can scrap the whole thing.....and build a funky place that does not resemble a mall....to appeal to a handful of people, who most likely won't come visit, even after you went to the trouble.....go solely by the feedback in this thread.....and forget about the 20,000 people shopping in SL right now, who are too busy clicking to buy to come into forum and analyze every decision a mall owner makes....

.....most of whom do not even know there is a forum.....and most of whom couldn't care less....they just want to shop....get some shoes....an evening gown....some hair doo dads......pick up some landmarks....get some money from the Sploder....and a few freebies from joining a group.....and they have so much fun doing that.....that they don't mind a bit clicking a few boxes on their screen.

They come to SL to live fun lives....set up house....go dancing....meet some friends....grab a mate....shop til' they drop.....and they don't come to SL to analyze things like pop up notecards. And they wouldn't waste a minute of their fun day to do so.

Do you all realize that there are a ton of people out there like that???

Right now, in my store group chat....someone is talking about a Jammie Party....and they are worried that I am dead, because I haven't sent out a group notice in two days! (which you all would consider spam) and now everyone is telling each other that they love each other.....one gal is mentioning that she is having a best in green contest in her club in a few minutes, and neither I nor anyone else is going to get huffy about that....because she's part of our little family...in fact, they are all probably headed her direction (you all would consider that spamming).....they will probably chat for another 10 minutes, and most likely not ONE person will leave group because of that....but YOU probably would!

They don't give a Rat's Azz that some mall is going to hand them a LM today! And I admire them for that!

Do you catch the drift at all???

Well, when you question why you should give validity to something someone says, you make it sound like you are dismissing it, which is why I pointed it out.



Fair enough. Even so, you still shouldn't dismiss what was said because you feel it was rude. The person may have a valid point. If you're going to run a mall, you're going to deal with all kinds of people. Some will express themselves nicely; some will express themselves rudely (maybe intentionally; maybe not). Developing a thick skin and taking what people have to say at face value, despite what verbiage it is cached in will be important to your long-term success. You'd be surprised how many "rude-seeming" comments and commenters can be defused and actually turned to liking what you have to say by simply accepting what they have to say graciously.



Well, you acknowledged that you can't please all the people all the time, so that's a given. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try to please as many people as you feasibly can.



Why was it a mistake? It is a given that no group of people will ever agree on most things, let alone everything. You still got valuable feedback, even from the contrarians.



By Jove, I think she's got it!

Seriously, you're right. Just do the best you can, exercise prudence and fairness, and maintain the highest levels of integrity you can. That formula, over time, will give you the best shot at being successful.

"Do you catch the drift at all?"

....was directed to the general discussion group....not Honeybear

No, you certainly can't. However, you *CAN* convert non-mall shoppers to mall shoppers, at least for your mall, if the reason why the person is a non-mall shopper is addressed by your particular mall. It isn't something one should strive for, but it pays to listen to why people don't want to shop at malls, because their concerns may be echoed by lots of folks who may just decide to start shopping at YOUR mall, because you addressed the issues to their satisfaction.



Do you realize that most of that "ton of people out there like that" also grumble to their friends, or other venue owners/operators all the time about being annoyed over such things?

There are some things which are very common "no-nos", because a large percentage of people are put off by them. Spammy givers are at the top of the list.



Probably. Depends on why I was in your "store group" in the first place. If I just wanted updates about your products/store, I would probably leave it if I was constantly spammed with off-topic group IMs. However, if I knew beforehand it was a social or "anything goes" group, and I wasn't interested in that, I would not have joined it in the first place.

Not a week goes by that we don't have a person who joins the Isle's Citizens group, which is solely billed as an "anything goes" social chat group, and complains about "chat spam" on the group. Part of that I blame on LLs shoddy design and implementation of the chat system, but it does seem kinda silly to join a group knowing it is all about something that you aren't the slightest bit interested in.



Well, if they don't give a "Rat's Azz" about it, I sure wish they would stop bitching about it to me and the rest of the staff.



Unfortunately, I do; the current's just not running the way you think it is.

I don't use traffic bots. I make really good items, which people love, and they tell their friends, etc etc. I also spend 33% of all income on classifieds and advertising. I do find people who use bots to be irritating, but ultimately the old adage is true: Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. (once they know you have it)

A few points...i use a chat greeter with a welcome and info about how to join my groups. I have never once had anyone in almost 2 years complain about it. I also do not like the blue screen giver things...i usually have not even seen the products or sim yet and i frankly dont know if i want a lm or not. i can make one myself, which i often do, or i can use one that invariably comes with the product i purchase. i dont appreciate unsolicited notecards, etc as well. I have found recently the even tho i decline things, or say discard, they still end up in my inventory and its just a pain to have to go through later and get rid of them.

i did check out your mall last night honey and will talk to you in world as we discussed...but i will share a few points that occurred to me...it is pretty sparse and some interesting plants and benches, etc would make it feel more welcoming. adding any sort of activities - fashion show, classes, a dance, etc - would bring people into your mall who may not have gone there otherwise, so making some sort of central area where all of that can take place or where the mall info is kept is good too. i was looking from the pespective of a renter and i would have liked a sign that allowed me to click to get a notecard on rent costs, rules etc. i did go into your land storefront but i didnt see any actual mall info. i tend to grab notecards and read them later, esp when i am late for something as i was last night lol.

i think will all these ideas and the additional info you have gained you have some great info to work with and you will be fine. i guess the key for me is to not make it look like every other mall out there...when i tp in i want to know where i have landed and feel welcome in the surroundings.

You've hit on a couple of ideas that I've been mulling around, but I'll discuss them with you tonight

Again...still in remodel mode and haven't gotten all the landscaping, etc. in

Yes....I realize that a ton of people grumble....and I chose not to cater to them....and to focus in the care-free, fun-loving shoppers....and those are the people in store group....and the ones who will join and stay next week, and the following week...

We....and I use the word "we"...because my store group members in general will call out a grumbler....as will I....if they grumble in group chat is it is frowned upon.....because we are there to have fun.

They can grumble to me privately...most of it is about Life in General...not about the store.....which I can do nothing about....because they are well, just basically a grumbler, and always will be. The only thing they would have to go out and grumble to the world about....is that I do not cater to grumbling....so I don't care.....they are welcome to spread that message.

I don't consider giving a LM spamming....I don't mind as a shopper. I don't give a LM out as a store owner at my own front entrance....but I want the mall that I am renting in to. I often have a "Thank You for visiting" gift box setting at different areas of the store....that hands them a pretty good gift (not crap).....with a LM. I feel that if I am handing them a quality gift...it softens up me handing them a LM....for those who don't care for it. If they get pissy about getting a LM, after I gave them a nice gift....well, they probably aren't the type who will enjoy our store group....and that would not be my target market.

I'm not saying that my only targets are the ones who will fit into store group....but that has to be where main focus is....as that is 50% to 75% of business.....so I have to "listen" to what that says to me.....and not get bogged down with trying to please everyone at every time....maybe next year I will have time to work on that.....but in the beginning....I think you need to concentrate on what works for you immediately, and take note.....so you don't get off on too many tangents.



People in my store group realize right away....that it is a bit of a social group....the chat is not abused, maybe once or twice a day....and a lot of people became friends from chatting together in that group.....and it fills a need for them....beyond simply sale announcements.

If a new group member pipes into chat, and complains about a friendly chat going on....I explain to them that we do that in our group, because we are all friends.....and it's allowed....and suggest they turn off their group chat. They are welcomed to group...unless they are rude. I do not tolerate Rudeness. If someone enters into group chat, and is Rude....I will ask them to please leave....and I will do right in group chat....to make it very clear, that rudeness is not tolerated. I've never noticed a mass exit based on any of the above.

I don't mind at all, if someone chooses to leave store group, because of one or two group chats....I cater to the shopper who likes to have fun and socialize at the same time. If that person chooses to never shop in the store again....that is fine as well....I cater to those who are going to have fun....

.....it might be a small percentage of SL....but I doubt it....even if it is....it's my niche

Just using all that as an example....to find the niche. Don't try to be everything to everyone....do what feels right to you, use feedback that applies....pay very close attention to the signs that you are receiving.....and it will all fall into place.

So, are you saying that, if someone has a complaint that is directly or indirectly related to your store/mall/products, you will ignore them?

When I say "grumbling", I mean complaining, and in this instance, complaining with good cause, or at least good conviction. There are plenty of people around who grumble just to grumble, but I am not talking about them. Still, if you don't listen to people who are complaining, how will you ever know which they are?



Most people "like to have fun", but if they aren't having fun with something related to you, wouldn't you like to know about it?



Again, I am not talking about people who are grumbling about irrelevancies, but about issues related to you or your creations/venues. No one has to care about someone's dissatisfaction with life completely unrelated to the listener; well, unless it is someone you care about enough to offer moral support to, anyway (or if you are a barber or a bartender).



I do. If I want something given to me, I will request it from a passive offer.

As for gifts, most places give me things that are completely useless, like t-shirts, which serves only to clutter up my inventory. Quite a few people tend to "mute all" on giver objects, which has a bad side effect in that it also mutes the owner's other objects, like vendors. Then when people try to buy stuff, they have what appears to be a REAL problem, as they pay for something they don't receive.



No one, definitely not myself, suggested that anyone should get bogged down trying to please everyone at every time. I repeatedly said that it won't happen, but that fact shouldn't preclude anyone from trying to please as many as possible.



Yeah, if it is billed as a social group, that's cool. However, if being in your store group is the only way you provide updates and new product notices, you might try making a separate group for that so those that aren't interested in the social chatter can just get what they want. It's just a suggestion, though; if what you are doing works for you, then by all means, keep doing it.



That's perfectly fine; it's your group; you set and enforce the rules. Anyone who doesn't like it can, well, leave, or be booted out.

However, if they were told it was one thing, and it turned out to be something completely different, I think that's a fair complaint. Not saying that is the case, just ruminating on the difference between valid complaints versus "your group; your rules".



Not sure what "fun" has to do with someone who has a legitimate complaint or issue and voices it to you. They could be the most "fun"-loving person in the world, but something made it "not fun" for them. It is fine to not care about why someone would not be "having fun" with you or your establishment, and it is fine to dismiss them over it. Just seems to be a little callous and unnecessary to me, though. It is relatively easy to get customers; it is more difficult to keep them. Why lose them over a triviality?



Is good advice; I'm glad you echo it.

good points tal...i have found that i think of things one way and then my customers let me know when they have other ideas or needs or wants. sometimes i can accomodate them and sometimes i cant. sometimes im willing to do what they are asking for and sometimes not. for instance....after hearing from sooo many customers how they would love to be in my group but had no more group slots left, i decided to add a subscribomatic group in addition to the regular one. in just a few months that group has grown and is really telling me that some folks love subscribo groups...even tho i personally do not like to join them myself. i think this also gives an option for those folks who dont like group chat and that may also be a reason for joining one or the other. i am one of those people that does not like alot of chat and things popping up on my screen but im probably in the minority...but i try hard to see things from my customer's perspective. i spend quite alot of time in my store chatting with folks and getting input and feedback and they now know me well enough to let me know when there are things that they would like to be different. it helps me put myself in their shoes and seek first to understand to quote mr covey...

Actually I said I don't like un-themed malls, and then I described in detail why I thought the whole concept was becoming less successful. Can't find something useful in that? What were you expecting, nothing but praise and free advertising?

Heck, I even bought something at your damned mall. Gimme a break.

Here's a making-vendors-happy suggestion that I'm sure you'll feel insulted over, but I trust anyone else reading will see it as just a suggestion...

Between two of your stores there's a wall that is thick enough to block hover text from the adjacent store, but everywhere else I saw the wall was thin enough that one vendor's hover text showed over top of the next store's displays. It might be beneficial for vendor satisfaction (and customer confusion) to make the shared walls thicker, or disallow hover text on those walls.

Here's something else to feel indignant over...

You run a mall. There are thousands of them. Just what can you possibly do to make yours visible? Just about all the search optimization advice says that to be visible without cheating (since that's what you asked about) you need to be focused and specific. Some say you need to fill a niche. How do you think you'll accomplish that with an un-themed mall? What keywords could you possibly use to make a frickin' *mall* visible? Maybe what you really need, instead of advice for how to be seen at the expense of others, is realistic expectations. Is your mall really better than the first five pages of results? Really?

Maybe you need to get it out of your head that you are special and deserve something that those other malls don't.

You run a frickin' mall, fer chrissake. You offer space for rent. Have you checked the land market recently to see just how non-special that is?

This won't end well.

Exactly. If I like the place, I can landmark it myself. Offering me a landmark is presumptuous. That's what makes it annoying, for me, anyway.

Email spammers use the same arguments. They're offering you something you might want, so they're doing you a favor. If you find it not helpful, just hit delete. Sound familiar?

It's almost become necessary to refuse something after every teleport, so I do it automatically now. If every website I visited popped a window I'd have a popup blocker. Oh, wait, I already do!

I'm not much of a mall goer, myself. The one exception is niche malls. I love niche malls (if I care about the niche).

Otherwise, I find XStreetSL so much more usable than TP'ing around to malls. it's the rez times, you see. I can't stand staring at grey prims, and then very low resolution images which aren't readable, followed by slightly higher resolution images which still aren't readable, then noticing that the vendors I *don't* care about have rezzed, while I wait and wait and wait...

If it's a niche mall, I'll put up with that, because I know i've hit paydirt and it's probably worth the wait. Otherwise, I browse on xstreetsl, and then usually visit mainstores for the items I like (where they exist).

I'm a firm believer in niche malls. Because they provide a value added service which makes them worth my time.

On the money!

That's why pretty much any thread on Resident Answers regarding shopping behaviours, morality issues about Bots, Picks Camping, group inviters,campers, green dots, copybotting,freebies, dollarbies, this and that etc etc etc .....is pretty much null and void!

The views of several hundred seasoned gamers on RA forum is but a snippet of the overall Second life community........and it makes me laugh at times how many people get their knickers in a twist.........because in the grand scheme of things, it actually means diddly squat!

PS. I'm not saying it isn't nice to read the views of many intelligent people here, but as Group, we need to get over our self importance! We don't shape opinion and habits in game. Where we do have influence are on threads where LL ask us to participate in like "Ad Farms" "Doughout land cutting".....then again one can never know if LL already made up their minds prior to that and simply want to dot the i's and cross the t's!

Not talking about a store complaint at all. Customer Service is extremely important. I was talking about Life in General complainers....thought I specified that.

To relate that back to the topic....you choose where you put your efforts....who you cater to. I would rather spend an hour catering to some group members who requested a new color of sofa.....then to spend that hour catering to someone who wants me to listen to a Life in General problem. In the early days, I did both.....but as your business grows, time requires you to decide where to place your efforts.....are you a store owner creating product....or are you a counselor or bartender?



Most definitely.



I don't recall anyone ever telling me a gift was "useless"....I most often get Thank Yous.



It seems to be working quite well the way it's set up now....and has been for months....I watch the number of group members every day. If I were to see 10 leave at once, I would take note of what might have happened concerning a group chat or something I might have done....I don't recall seeing that.

Just another example of watching what works, and running with it.



Wow! I hope that is not the message the readers got by me saying that I don't feel like spending store hours on Life in General complainers.

I don't consider that telling me I put a blue candle into the red candle box is a complaint at all. Nor is asking me if I would do a sofa in red. Those are not complaints to me. That is customer service. I would never be callous or count that as a triviality.....I was talking about something entirely different than that.

I totally subscribe to your point that you work on keeping customers and catering to those you already have. And I work really hard on that....excessively....and that would be advice I give to a new store owner.

Are we still on topic???

Phil's store has a sign that simply requests it because it benefits the store, and he apparently has plenty of takers. I don't consider that gaming at all. Maybe they mistakenly think it's pay-for-picks, though. That just occurred to me.

I bought a dress in your store as a result of checking the place out because of this thread. So, the free advertising aspect of it is working.

I agree with Talarus that automated greeters are meaningless and maybe even a bit insulting, but they require no action. They go away automatically. Not nearly as annoying as popups.

Whew!

Never really had the guts to come out and say it just like that....but it was brewing for a long time....especially the diddly squat part.

Thanks for taking the pressure off!

You're right that we are but a small cross-section of the general SL population. We are a small "sample". The point is, however, that we are a "representative sample".

I have dealt with literally thousands of people in SL, directly. The vast majority of them are not active in the forums. Many of those people I have talked with for more than a short little chat. The things I am saying here are often echoed by a large percentage of them, which is why *I* consider them important to bring up, even beyond my own motivated self-interest.

Now, I am making no claim to represent them directly, but no one here holds a totally "unique" opinion on any particular subject. Even if we aggregate opinions into categories, there are still a lot of folks out there who have claimed similar issues to what we are discussing here. Thus, in statistical terms, we are considered a "representative sample" of the SL population, and thus, our views are worth slightly more than "diddly squat".

I would prefer everyone come voice their opinions themselves, but absent that, I think it is safe to assume that all sides presented in the forums represent some significant percentage of the SL population and should thus be considered no less than any other.



Just to clear up this misconception.. LL didn't KNOW about "Ad Farms" and "doughnut land cutting", or even care, until a small, but growing, group of residents started talking and kept talking until they listened. It took months to get them to do something, and many more months before they did something that worked, even though it wasn't a complete solution to the problem.

Point is, LL didn't and wouldn't have asked for input if we hadn't pressed the issue for so long beforehand. Hence, I would avoid discounting what people say here on that basis alone.

Not initially, and since you were responding to me, it wasn't who or what I was talking about at all.

It's OK, just that we weren't harmonized on our understanding of each others' terms, is all.



Absolutely, but I wasn't talking about "general complainers". Someone who has an issue with being spammed by one of your objects, or joining your store group under the impression it is solely for product updates and news, then finding out that it isn't for that, and pointing it out to you are hardly "general complainers".



I probably wouldn't say anything, just decline it, or delete it. However, if the giver tries to give it to me again, I would let the owner know that I don't appreciate being spammed.



*shrug* since that was not the group I was referring to in my previous post, not sure why you would assume I am talking about them.



That's fine. I wasn't.



I never left it, I don't think.

Ok I've been on the lash all day so I'm typing this with one eye open but the automatic greeters I stopped after people in these forums said they didn't like them, this was a while ago. Much better to have a join a group board and give people the option in my view.

Like Honeybear I run a mall, indeed we carry a lot of the same lines so I can see where people are saying they see the same thing and the teleport argument is a good one. Honeybear has some things I don't because she makes them herself and I have some things she doesn't have because I make them myself.

The bottom line is we both make sales, alas due to the way Second Life works neither of us know what brings people to our malls, unlike my website I have no way of checking what search terms bring people to my mall, it's something I'd love to have access to.