Taking Advantage of Word of Mouth – Part 1

In this next set of lessons, we’re going to start looking at another topic that’s often overlooked: word of mouth. The problem with not seeing how you can impact and take advantage of word of mouth is that it can have a huge positive or negative effect on your business in a short time. We’ll focus on what word of mouth is in today’s lesson and go on from there.

What is Word of Mouth?

When it comes to marketing, word of mouth is one of the best forms as it’s powerful coming from others using your service. Plus, it’s free! People are willing to talk about the different ads they see that they remember, products they use, and the different experiences they have with brands. By creating a positive experience for people, they will come to your business and help to spread the word to others about your business for the long term.

Is There Bad Word of Mouth?

However, keep in mind that while a positive experience can lead to great word of mouth, this can also go the other way. Negative word of mouth can be very jarring for your business and requires action. People are often more motivated to spread negative word of mouth faster and further than when they’re happy with a service. If your product doesn’t live up to the high-quality expectations or your customer service is poor, people will tell others not to come to your business.

Technology and Word of Mouth

Technology has made word of mouth even more powerful than ever before and is a huge benefit for your business. People are able to share their opinion on your business in a large variety of ways from forums, blogs, social networks, online marketing, podcasts, and every other type of site. It’s never been easier for people to have their word of mouth heard by others. The best part of this is that it’s all free for your business.

Customer Decision Cycle to Increase Sales

Let’s go over why it’s important to help shorten the customer decision cycle to give your clients the boost they need to choose your service quickly and without hassle. You can work to reduce their decision cycle by increasing:

• The number of customers you have
• How often customers are buying
• The overall amount of money that customers spend on their purchase

Going Deeper Into Decision Speed

There are a few things that you can offer your customer that will help them to make their decisions in a quick and confident manner. You should have a simplicity and ease to what you offer. You don’t want to make a decision on your products or services to be too complex or complicated. You should also make the environment fun for customers. Achieving this allows you to help your customers to want to buy more often, spend more money than they normally do (Target, anyone?), and make the decision to buy faster. Don’t forget it also makes them want to give others word of mouth by referring their friends! You can raise your share of the market a 100 times over through this methodology.

The amount of time that your customer takes to make a buying decision should be your top priority as it’s more important than any kind of marketing that you do for your business. Focusing on how long it takes a customer to make a buying decision can make you take a long look at your company, your positioning, the values you offer, your customer service, how your brand is viewed, your guarantees, and the quality you offer. Any of these that cause your customer to pause before purchasing should be examined and tweaked until it’s a positive.

Minimizing Decision Making Stress

Think about how you feel before making a purchase. There’s a certain amount of stress in the buying process, especially for those big purchases or when using a new brand or company. Finding ways to minimize the stress and friction that your customers feel can help to increase their decision speed.

Secrets to Helping to Minimize This Stress

• Make your guarantees, claims, promises, benefits, and features as clear as possible. What may seem obvious and concise to you, may not to your customers. Make sure it does.
• Make sure any information you give your customers about your company, products, and services is credible and balanced.
• Use examples and comparisons that show a noticeable difference.
• Provide a rock-solid guarantee and go above and beyond customer expectations.
• Create free trials that are easy and understandable.
• Keep testimonials to those that are positive and relevant to your current offerings.
• Offer simple product or service evaluations.
• Provide perfect delivery and customer support while keeping your operational systems running effectively and efficiently.
• Make your website as user-friendly and as optimal as you can get. The more information you offer, the better the experience for your customers when it comes to the decision making process. Guiding them gently through this process makes it easier for them to feel comfortable with making a purchase. Things you can do to go above and beyond includes offering software downloads that help with the process, easy ways to get support and customer service, such as a live chat features and a toll-free phone number, and other ways that help reassure your customers that you have their back through this process.

That’s it for today’s lesson. We’ll continue covering word of mouth in the next several lessons. Do you need help with determining the market you should target or putting these lessons into place? Contact us today to learn more about how service can help you to grow your business now and into the future.

Power-Up Your Amplification Part 4

In our past three parts, we’ve gone over the following topics:

• Partner Up
• Create a Referral System That Works
• Gather Up the Stray Sheep
• Boost Your Sales Staff
• Target the Big Fish
• Radio in for Help
• Blow-up Online
• Be Bazaar Ready
• Offer Up

In our final lesson on this topic, we’ll go over the last three items:

• Follow the Rainbow
• Rise to the Top
• Look Inside

Each of these topics is essential to help you in powering-up your amplification to make your efforts work for you.

Follow the Rainbow

You have to follow the rainbow to reach that pot of gold at the end. It’s vital to always have a goal in mind that you’re working towards. This goal should be something that can be reached and should be one that ultimately allows you to reach your business’ full potential. It’s fine to have a high aim, but it’s essential that you have a clear idea of the goal and what steps need to be taken to get there. Holding yourself accountable for reaching the goals you set, and continuing to set higher and higher goals is how you’ll be able to follow the rainbow.

Rise to the Top

It can be easy to rest on your laurels once you’ve risen to the top of your game. You may think you’ve mastered all of these areas, but it’s vital to stay competitive. You want to continue to find ways where you can use what you’ve learned to further your agenda rather than stagnate. It’s easy to rest once you’ve gotten on the path of success, but continue striving forward. You need to learn and evolve your business constantly to rise to the top.

Look Inside

It can be easy to become obsessed with things on the outside, such as amassing great wealth, but it’s important for you to focus on the wealth inside of you. These strategies are not only intended to help you become a better business person but to help you become an overall better person. Imparting this into your life on a personal and professional level will help you to find more success. This improvement in your life will help to attract the people that you want into your life.

Remember that you’re able to reach your goals as long as you keep them clear and attainable with a path that you know you can follow.

The past seven lessons that we’ve covered have all been about looking at what you currently have available to you and how to get the most out of it. Then, being able to turn around and powering that up further to get to the next level.

It’s not always easy to know how to move forward or what steps you should take. That’s where our services can come in. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you with your business’ power-up.

Power-Up Your Amplification Part 3

We’ve been going over the different ways that you’re able to power-up your applications. In the past lessons, we’ve covered:

• Partner Up
• Create a Referral System That Works
• Gather Up the Stray Sheep
• Boost Your Sales Staff
• Target the Big Fish
• Radio in for Help

In today’s lesson, we’re going to tackle three more topics:

• Blow-up Online
• Be Bazaar Ready
• Offer Up

Blow-Up Online

Some businesses only have an online presence. Some only have a brick-and-mortar presence. Some have both. Did you know that those that take advantage of both options are often more successful than those that just focus on one over the other? Getting online with your business has never been easier, and presents global opportunities.

There are a few keys that you need to keep in mind to blow-up online and successfully sell your products beyond your local community:

• Have a product people want that’s a great quality
• Build a website that’s designed with users in mind
• Bring in traffic that’s motivated to buy at a low budget amount

Each of these will help you to blow-up your business using the Internet.

Be Bazaar Ready

As a business owner, bartering and negotiating are two skills you need to hone. Don’t be that person that pays the sticker price at a garage sale. This situation can be a perfect opportunity to negotiate and barter. Make bundle deals to get discounts. Talk to companies about exchanging services rather than money. You may be surprised at how much you can save your business by bartering and negotiate.

Offer Up

When a prospective client finds your company, you don’t know what of your services or products will meet their needs. They might not be sure either. That’s why it can be helpful to offer up. Offer them all the products and services you specialize in. This information can help you to create a tailor-made package that’s going to take care of all of their needs.

Taking some time to help these prospects to see what you have to offer can keep your company in their thoughts. It means that they may be more likely to call on your company to fill their needs when they’re ready. Even if they aren’t willing to purchase now, you can keep yourself in their mind. Some ways to accomplish this is by creating a free newsletter, a one-on-one session consultant, or another tool that provides value to the prospect.

That’s all for today’s lesson on how you can power-up your application In the next lesson, we’ll finish up with the final three ways. Are you starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with trying to get this implemented in your business or just don’t know where you should start? Contact us to learn about how our service can help your business.

Power-Up Your Amplification Part 2

In our previous less, we went over how you can start to power-up your plans to amplify your business. The topics we went over included:

• Partner Up
• Create a Referral System That Works
• Gather Up the Stray Sheep

In today’s lesson, we’ll tackle three more:

• Boost Your Sales Staff
• Target the Big Fish
• Radio in for Help

Boost Your Sales Staff

Can you imagine how many sales you could get if you were to hire a sales staff of thousands that were willing to work 24/7 for you for free? While it’s probably not possible to hire like that, there is a tool that offers that exact service: direct mail marketing.

Direct mail marketing gets your business in front of potential clients by providing them with sales copy that shows them the value your business offers. Proposals, brochures, and sales letters are all great options. You can mail these out to a list of leads and wait for contact.

You’re able to bring in potentially thousands of new clients, but it’s also cost-effective.

Target the Big Fish

One of the problems you may come across is time-wasters. These are potential clients that just aren’t interested in your service. It’s important to target the big fish that have a need and are interested. Use our prior lessons to help you in your search for targeting prospects that are better quality.

It’s important to take some time and research your potential clients. You’ll want to learn more about them to determine if you’re targeting the best companies. You want to make sure that not only will they be interested in what your company has to offer, but that your company will offer them a benefit from what you’re selling for a long time.

Not sure where to start? After looking over our previous lessons and still feel a bit stuck? You may want to consider purchasing a direct mail list that’s targeting the specific client type you’re trying to reach. You can rent or purchase a list that will have their name, title, job information, and most importantly, their contact information. This list is an excellent starting point for starting to get higher quality targets.

Radio in for Help

Sometimes, it’s beneficial to radio for help. In this instance, that means using telemarketing. Telemarketing has a bad rap, but it can be a useful tool when used correctly. Just keep in mind that not using it correctly could result in negative results.

Here are some tips to get the most out of using telemarketing:

1. Mail marketing should be your first defense.
2. When starting a telemarketing campaign, you’ll want to run a test.
3. Create a price for what you’re offering.
4. Set up a progressive approach to your campaign.

What exactly is a progressive approach? It’s using progressive contact that builds trust between your company and your potential clients. It requires several progressive steps that need to be taken.

These steps include:

• Putting your potential client at ease.
• Offering your product in a way that’s natural as a conversation.
• Not being pushy or argumentative.
• Staying 100 percent honest.
• Getting your 30-second elevator pitch perfect.
• Be clear about who you are, what your business is, why you’re calling them, and how you got their information.
• Tell them the benefits that they can have from your service or product.
• Follow this up with one of the features that ensure those benefits.
• Use preliminary questions to get information about the prospect.

Each of these steps can help you to maximize the benefits of using a telemarketing campaign while minimizing the negative responses that could have a lasting impact on your business.

That concludes the information contained in today’s lesson for power-up your application process. We have two more lessons planned in this series to give you the resources you need to get the most out of your efforts.

Are you finding that you need some help going through some of these topics and getting them applied to your business? Contact us today to learn more about our service, and how it can help you.

Power-Up Your Amplification Part 1

In the previous series of lessons, we went over how to amplify your current holdings, and in this next series of lessons, we’ll help you to go even bigger. Learn more about how you can power-up your amplification efforts.

This topic will be a four-part lesson, and in today’s lesson, we’ll cover these subjects:

• Partner Up
• Create a Referral System That Works
• Gather Up the Stray Sheep

Partner Up

One of the most vital parts of your business is bringing in new paying clients, and this is often one of the most laborious and most expensive tasks for your business. There’s a way that you can help to reduce the strain on your business, and that’s by partnering up. It can be beneficial to work with other trustworthy companies to create positive relationships with their clients. It’s essential that this business isn’t a competitor.

You’ll want to find prospects among your partner companies that you can talk with about creating an arrangement where you can promote your service or product to their clients. Commissions on the sales you gain from their client list is an excellent incentive.

When suggesting this type of arrangement, there are a few points that you’ll want to include in your proposal:

• Specify how your services or products won’t compete with what they offer.
• Explain how this relationship won’t impact their sales, now and into the future.
• Show how this relationship can help to increase their profits.
• Assure them that they won’t have to spend any money on this relationship.
• Let them know that you’ll be creating all of the marketing materials to be used.
• In addition, make sure that they are aware of the guarantee that you offer on your services or products to give them the same peace of mind as the clients that sign with you through this partnership.

Create a Referral System That Works

The next consideration is creating a referral system that will help to bring in new clients utilizing your current network. All of the people that you know are potential marketing opportunities because they know others that could use your service or product. To get started, you’ll want to demonstrate why your company should always be the first choice by showing how much you care for them.

Then, you’re able to show them how your company can improve their life or their own business by providing top-notch service to them. Acting in a consistent manner, you’ll find more clients coming your way through word of mouth.

Gather Up the Stray Sheep

You’ll also want to gather up your stray sheep. All those customers that haven’t purchased from you in a while are a great way to rejuvenate your sales. It’s important to figure out where things went wrong in their eyes, and help bring them back to the fold.

There are a few typical reasons for why a client stops using your service. They include:

• A personal cause that has nothing to do with your business
• An issue that came up with their past relationship, such as a problem with a previous purchase
• They no longer see a benefit from using your service or product

The easiest and best way to start bringing these sheep back into the fold is to contact them. Open up a line of communication. Not contacting them means that they’ll continue to avoid your company, but making an effort to get in touch can show you care about their business. Make an appointment or pick up the phone.

Be open and honest with your clients that stray. Talk to them about how you noticed they haven’t placed an order or used your service for a while. Let them know that you’d like to talk about their experiences, and how you could improve things to bring them back on board. You want to make them feel special, and that you fully intend to address what happened if something did going forward.

All of this information in today’s lesson will help you to power-up your current holdings. Need some help with any of these topics? Contact us today to learn more about how our services can assist you in moving forward.

We’ll continue this lesson in tomorrow’s blog with the next three topics.

Amplify Your Holdings Part 3

Our last lesson covered three ways to amplify your holdings through:

• Explore your business’ conscience
• Enticing wheeling and dealing
• Stand out from the crowd

In this lesson, we’ll cover another three topics that you can embrace to get the most out of your resources. They include:

• Getting them to say yes
• Supersize it
• Don’t be a lemming

Getting Them To Say Yes

The movie, The Godfather, offers one of the best tidbits of advice in getting your clients to say yes in giving them an offer that they can’t refuse. This thought process can be the secret to your success in gaining a competitive edge to your competition. You need to open the way for them to say yes rather than no. This concept means that you need to eliminate any roadblocks they may have to say yes, such as financial, emotional, physical or psychological blocks.

One of the easiest ways to do this for your clients is by reducing the risks. Give them guarantees or warranties that can help build their confidence in you, your company, and what you have to offer them. This tip means that you have to stand by any warranties or guarantees your place on the service you provide. Not doing so can be the end of your business.

Supersize It

Fast food franchises know how to get you with add-ons and upgrades when they ask you if you want fries with your burger or if you want your meal in a bigger size. It makes sense for them to do it because it garners more sales, and the worse that can happen is that the consumer says no. Whenever you sell your service or product, ask whether they could use an add-on or upgrade to go along with it. Adding a complementary product to the one sold that has a value the client can see can increase your sales.

Don’t Be A Lemming

You also don’t want to be a lemming and jump off the cliff. You want to avoid the edge of the cliff by continuing to monitor all aspects of your business. Problems in product, systems, and even marketing can result in issues that can derail your progress. Keeping an eye on how your business runs to see an issue before it becomes an issue is beneficial.

Areas that may need improvements include:

• Your customer service policies and procedures
• You may want to explore how your employees interact with your customers
• Your marketing efforts
• Your sales copy may need polished or updated
• You may need to change up your sales letters and presentations

You can test these different areas to help you identify how you can improve your business. You may find that you can raise the prices on some of your services, lower it on others, create incentives, or other improvements that can help you to amplify your holdings better.

This final lesson completes the different tips on how you’re able to amplify your holdings to improve your business. Are you finding that you could use some additional support? Contact us today about how services can improve the way you run your business.

Amplify Your Holdings Part 2

In our previous lesson, we covered three ways to begin amplifying your holdings. These included:

• See the noticeable
• Unorthodox ideas
• Be realistic

In today’s lesson, we’ll cover three additional ways to increase your revenue. They include:

• Explore your business’ conscience
• Enticing wheeling and dealing
• Stand out from the crowd

Explore Your Business’ Conscience

Your business is just like a living breathing thing in that it has a conscience. The conscience of your business was probably closer to the surface when you first started it. All of your passion and drive during the early months played a role in creating this conscience. The problem is that this often can get lost as time goes by, and you may find that your business stagnates. In fact, you may find that your business is in a rut.

Now is the perfect time to escape that rut. The biggest key to any business’ success is putting your clients needs first. Your business should serve your clients rather than selling them. Clients want a relationship they can trust rather than getting a lemon. It’s all about getting back to the basics. You need to help them solve problems. You need to handle any special situations that arise. You need to give your clients the top-notch service or products they expect. Be their friends while offering a value proposition.

Enticing Wheeling and Dealing

Sometimes it’s all about going with what you know works. Enticing wheeling and dealing is a successful sales technique that brings in new clients. You offer a low price on your service for their initial purchase, and this brings them back for more. You’ll see book clubs or credit card companies offering these types of deals.

You’re getting them in the door thanks to your initial low price, and then offer additional products along the way. This method helps to establish a relationship between your business and the client.

Stand Out From the Crowd

It can be hard to stand out from the crowd when you have a lot of competitors, but finding a way to be unique will help clients find your business. Value and consistency are two trends that can help you get noticed. It’s important to identify your USP, also known as your Unique Selling Proposition). Once you’ve identified it, it’s time to develop it. Some tips for developing your USP include:

1. Find any needs that are going unfilled in your business’ niche.
2. Practice defensive marketing to always bring in leads.
3. Be clear and to the point with your techniques.

That concludes today’s lesson. Think you need more help on amplifying your current holdings? Contact us now to learn more about how our service can help your business.

Amplify Your Holdings Part 1

Our next set of lessons will have you looking at the holdings you current have, and how you can get more out of them. Learning how to amplify your holdings can help your capital stretch further and help to boost your profit margin.

In this lesson, we’re going to go over some ways that you can amplify the holdings that you already have in your possession. These tips include:

• See the noticeable
• Unorthodox ideas
• Be realistic

See the Noticeable

Often, a person that’s involved in a situation may have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. It can be difficult to take a big-picture approach when you can’t see it. One of the first things that you need to do is to see the noticeable. You need to look at your current holdings carefully. There are plenty of opportunities for success surrounding you, your career, and your business. It’s just about being able to see them.

Unorthodox Ideas

The next tip is not to ignore unorthodox ideas. You can’t wait for your next breakthrough to happen. You have to make it happen by creating it. Breakthroughs in your business are just ways to adapt to new methodologies or finding new things. Brainstorming sessions should be the norm in your company. You and your team should always be working on new ideas, and encourage your staff to come forward whenever they have them.

Examples of breakthroughs:

• Play-Doh was originally invented to clean wallpaper before it became the toy sensation it is today.
• The idea for roll-on deodorant came from ballpoint
• Nike’s founder used a waffle iron and rubber for his innovations with running shoes.

There are a few objectives that you need to keep in mind when going through a brainstorming session. These objectives include:

1. Identify any hidden opportunities as you may be able to turn a negative into a positive.
2. Every three months, you should be trying to find a cash windfall for your business.
3. Your innovations will have more value to you when they add more value to your clients.
4. Work on more than one breakthrough at a time to find the best innovations.
5. The best innovations for your business will eliminate resistance and risk.

Be Realistic

Innovations and breakthroughs can be beneficial for your business, but before they can be put into place, it’s essential to be realistic. It’s important to determine which of your systems and process aren’t working, and then find the best way to fix them. The best way to handle this is through a system analysis. It’s important to list your strengths and weaknesses to get a good grip on your current business standings. It’s also beneficial to then compare this list to your competitors. Think of it as a mini SWOT analysis.

Some questions for you and your team to ponder now includes:

1. What was my reasons for starting my business, and why in this industry?
2. What were my products and services? Which were popular?
3. Why do my clients come to me for my service now?
4. How was I getting new clients in the past?
5. What marketing efforts offer the best results?

These answers can help you to shore up your weakness and improve upon your strengths.

These three tips are just the tipping point of how you’re able to amplify your holdings to get the most out of them. The next lessons will continue to grow your knowledge on this topic.

Still need some additional help? Contact us today to learn about how our services can help your business thrive.

5 Big Blunders You Need to Avoid Part 3

We’ve gone over the first four big blunders that you need to avoid to protect your company in our previous blogs. Today, we’ll cover the final blunder: not having enough operating cash for your business.

Cash flow is one of the essential things to carefully watch for your business, even during the good times. There’s always the chance that you could run out of cash flow even if your business is doing well. One of the best ways to handle your getting your cash flow balanced is getting on time payment from your clients. For many of you, this may seem like the beginning of a headache, but it’s critical for your business to remain successful.

Get your payment process on track with these tips:

• Send your invoices on time, and always keep your records up to date for potential audits.
• Double Check your invoices for accuracy before sending them out. You don’t want to over or under charge your clients.
• Talk to your clients about how they process their payments to you. Get any information necessary on how best to invoice them, such as the best address.
• Get the contact information of the person that’s in charge of handling the orders and payments to you in case you need to speak to them in the future.
• Design a follow-up process just in case it’s needed.
• Get in touch with your contact as a last resort.

There are some ways that you can protect your cash flow. Here are some tips:

• Keep track of when accounts have to be paid.
• Speak with your suppliers to work on lowering costs as much as possible.
• Design a contingency plan for the bank just in case you need it.
• Create your own network of investors.

Following through on these tips can help you keep your cash flow balanced during the good times and the slow.

All of these lessons have the intention of helping you find and bring in new clients that are bigger and better than your previous ones. These lessons are the best way to grow your business and find success. It can take time to follow through on all of these steps, but going through them accurately will help you to find success.

Need some assistance with handling these tasks? Contact us today to learn more about the services we offer and how they can help you in building a better, more successful business.

Big Blunders You Need to Avoid Part 2

Previously, we went over the first two big blunders that you should avoid when making deals. In this lesson, we’ll go over the next two: biting off more than you can chew and having all of your expectations on one contract.

Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Taking on too much business before your company can handle it can backfire. It becomes impossible for your company to keep up with all of the demands on it from your clients. This situation can turn into one where you’re unable to function and lose control. For your business to be successful, you need to have a clear plan for how you’ll handle growth. You must be able to provide the high-quality service, products, and customer service that your clients will expect from your company. Their concern is their business, not how your company handles things behind the scenes.

Defeat this blunder by looking for these signs:

• Some or all of your clients aren’t having their needs met.
• Your clients aren’t happy, your staff morale is down, and you feel panicky.
• You and your staff are always in emergency mode to handle customer needs.
• You’re losing profit and clients.
• You have to reallocate your resources.
• You’re trying to hold your business together with your fingertips.

It may be time to implement the Mock Fish Plan. It’s a valid plan that makes it possible for you to react positively to what’s going on so that you can put your business back on the right track before it’s too late.

What this plan does for your business:

• Add sales for the short term
• Improve your services and products
• Make it possible to meet any promises to clients

Steps in the Mock Fish Plan:

1. Create a team made up of your best employees that can meet the needs of your clients.
2. Go over your current operations.
3. Brainstorm potential problems and determine how to solve them.
4. Improve your communications process.
5. Put costs in all of your quotes.
6. Make a backup plan to fall back on.

Having All of Your Expectations on One Deal

You’ve probably heard the phrase do not have all your eggs in one basket meaning that this one basket could break with all of your eggs in it. You don’t want to depend on one client or deal for your company. There are going to be times when that client isn’t as active as you’d like or they may have a situation that comes up where they’re no longer your client. What happens to your company if this happens? Your business may suffer. It’s vital to have a diverse range of clients to keep your business prosperous.

Problems with one client can result in difficulties with potential clients. Here are some steps that can help you create a stable company with a secure future:

• Stay connected with your client’s company to have an idea of what’s going on internally not to get blindsided by news that could impact your deal.
• Stay aware of your industry and revamp your company to remain industry leaders.
• Remain exclusionary.
• Have a goal of contracts and commitments that are long-term rather than one year.
• Contracts should be spread out among a variety of clients.
• Stay aware of your pricing within the industry to keep your prices competitive.

It’s essential to reduce the dependency that you may have on just one client. You’ll be able to measure this with either profits or sales. It may be helpful to go back and look over previous lessons to find the best way to bring on more clients to achieve this balance.

Another lesson down on how to avoid these blunders to keep your company running strong. Need help with your business? Contact us today to learn about our services and how they can make a difference for your company.

Our next lesson will cover the final big blunder that you need to avoid for your business.