Archive for small business
How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back And Succeed At Business
Posted by: | CommentsFirst sales are always more difficult than repeat sales. Therefore, owners of small businesses are constantly on the lookout for ways to create loyal customers. Regardless of what you sell, there are a lot of ways you can maintain a loyal customer base. Below are a few tips:
Stay Professional by Keeping Your Training Up to Date
Never stop learning about what you are selling. It is important to always be perceived as the expert in your field. With the Internet making it easy to do research, customers are becoming more and more informed. And no customer wants to know more than the “expert”. So read the updates and take the courses you need to always be up to date on what’s going on in your industry. Customers will stay loyal if you stay committed to lifelong learning.
Make It A Priority To Resolve Customer Issues
It is rare that you will hear about a customer problem up front, so you need to use your intuition in many cases. It would be well worth it to ask your customers directly on occasion how the relationship is going, and what you might be able to do to improve the experience for your customer.
The most important advice is to never point blame when you hear of a problem and use the SODDI defense (some other dude did it). It’s your business, so everything that goes wrong is your fault – take the blame with grace. Then, take action to fix it fast. Customers are used to the SODDI defense and rarely encounter vendors who work fast to solve their problems. Instead of focusing on the problem, they will recall a positive resolution of the situation and that will keep them coming back for more. In fact, it is often that case that those “problem” customers often end up referring new business your way because of their satisfaction with your service.
Remind the Customer Why They Chose You in the First Place
Now is not the time for modesty; it is important to remind your customers why you excel over your competition and congratulate them for making the right choice in you. There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t like to be praised, and its the perfect opportunity to help them recall your competitive advantages at the same time.
Creating loyal customers is no more than treating them so well that no one else could compare. When great service comes naturally, customers begin to expect it year after year. That’s a loyal customer.
Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year” to learn about an online accounting program that makes it easy to track repeat customer profitability.
Loyal Customers Will Keep Coming Back and Your Business Will Thrive
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s always easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one. For this reason, owners of small businesses constantly look for ways to keep their customers happy. No matter what you sell, there are a number of strategies you can employ to maintain customer loyalty. Below are a few tips:
Stay Professional by Keeping Your Training Up to Date
Keep up to date on the news and innovations that affect your industry. It’s critical for your customers to think of you as an expert in your industry. With easy accessibility to information on the Internet, customers do their research and are more informed than ever. You don’t want a situation where your customer knows more than you, the perceived expert. So read the updates and take the courses you need to always be up to date on what’s going on in your industry. Your commitment to lifelong growth will be rewarded by loyal customers.
Solve the Problems Fast
It’s important to stay perceptive to your customer’s needs as they will rarely tell you up front if they have a problem. You could learn a lot by asking your customers periodically how their experience with your and your company has been and request suggestions for improvement that might make their situation even more enjoyable.
Most important, when you hear of a problem never give in to the SODDI defense (some other dude did it). Take the blame gracefully, after all it’s your company and therefall anything that goes wrong ultimately stops with you. Then rapidly solve the problem. Customers are used to the SODDI defense and rarely encounter vendors who work fast to solve their problems. Instead of the error being foremost in their minds, the amiable resolution will keep them returning as repeat customers. In fact, it is often that case that those “problem” customers often end up referring new business your way because of their satisfaction with your service.
Help Your Customer Recall the Reasons They Picked You
Now is not the time for modesty; it is important to remind your customers why you excel over your competition and congratulate them for making the right choice in you. Everyone loves to receive praise and why not drive home your good qualities at the same time.
Creating loyal customers is no more than treating them so well that no one else could compare. When great service comes naturally, customers begin to expect it year after year. That’s customer loyalty.
Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year” to learn about an online accounting program that makes it easy to track repeat customer profitability.
Joint Venture Marketing Lets You Aim High For Your Business
Posted by: | CommentsA marketing budget is a big expense to small business owners, and often one of the first to go when times get tight . However, marketing is the lifeblood of continued sales, and the small business’ poor performance is often enhanced because of the cuts. One way to dream big even when times are tough is to take advantage of joint venture opportunities.
To be specific, a joint venture is when two or more business owners plan to contribute collectively toward a project that will benefit them all. Put into English, this means the opportunity to pool resources so that everyone benefits. A joint venture can be as simple as working with another business owner to cross promote your products, or as complicated as collaborating together on an elaborate weekend event.
Regardless of the complexity, joint ventures have benefits for everyone involved. First, is your chance to create more power from your marketing budget. As an example, maybe your budget only allows for print media advertising, but by consolidating several business owner’s resources you will be able to expand into radio or even television advertising. In addition, all of the participants in the joint venture have their own customer lists and networking contacts, which essentially enlarges each business owner’s sales force.
New business owners really benefit from choosing the right strategic business partners because they can establish their credibility very rapidly. You really are perceived to be like those you hang around, so choosing successful partners will give you credibility as well. And, those folks are successful for a reason – so if you take advantage of their knowledge your learning curve will be greatly reduced.
But the biggest advantage of joint venture marketing is that you can keep your dreams alive through collaboration. With the right partners, there is no ambition that is too high. Small businesses are thriving through joint venture marketing, even during these tough economic times. Yours can too with your commitment to finding the best joint venture partners for your goals.
Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year” to learn about an online accounting program that makes it simple to track the success of your joint venture marketing.
Reach For the Stars For Your Business With Joint Venture Marketing
Posted by: | CommentsA marketing budget is a big expense to small business owners, and often one of the first to go when times get tight . However, marketing is the lifeblood of continued sales, and the small business’ poor performance is often enhanced because of the cuts. Joint venture opportunities are an option to keep your dreams alive even in tough times.
A joint venture is a strategic alliance between two or more business people to contribute to a common commercial enterprise. Put into English, this means the opportunity to pool resources so that everyone benefits. This concept works equally well on simple projects such as cross promotion as on more complicated projects such as a consolidated seminar.
Anyone involved in a joint venture will benefit regardless of the complexity. The first benefit is that you get much more bang for your marketing buck. When you are not footing the entire bill, you might be able to afford advertising on radio or TV where in the past you were limited to print. And every member of the joint venture has contacts and customers that can benefit the other members, expanding everyone’s sales force.
New business owners really benefit from choosing the right strategic business partners because they can establish their credibility very rapidly. If you choose successful joint venture partners, your credibility will grow rapidly as people perceive you to be similar to those you associate with. Not to mention that successful business owners are so for a reason, and by learning from them as you go you will avoid a lot of the mistakes others make along the way.
But the biggest advantage of joint venture marketing is that you can keep your dreams alive through collaboration. No goal is out of reach once you have found the right partners to make it happen. Small businesses are thriving through joint venture marketing, even during these tough economic times. With the right commitment, your business can grow too.
Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year” to learn about an online accounting program that makes it simple to track the success of your joint venture marketing.
Have You Any Successful Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses
Posted by: | CommentsWhen I was twenty-three, I had what I believed was a good business idea. I was going to sell cheap holidays as I knew a contact in the industry.
At the same time I would also attempt to make money via offering a fostering services UK service to the people that I knew.
By reading a number of books on marketing for small businesses and by asking a good friend of mine who has a business which is to do with selling external doors, I managed to find some potential routes which could help me to get started.
Direct marketing
This happened to be the first area that I tried. I had a small leaflet produced which explained the speech coaching service that I was offering and then with the help of some friends and family, went around my local area delivering them. This was not as successful as I hoped it would be, however I am sure that this area of marketing could work well for other types of business.
Newspapers
I then decided to speculate to accumulate. I contacted a number of the local newspapers in my area and paid for an advertisment which would appear on a weekly basis. This advert would reach quite a large number of people and even though this was quite an expensive form of marketing, it did work for me in the early days.
Open evenings/days
I wanted to expand the area that I was going to offer my services. I decided to hold an open day or presentation in various parts of the country which would help to promote my business.
I was actually quite surprised just how well this worked. The newspapers were virtually biting my hand off for the story, as it was something different that some of their readers were likely to find of interest. It was, of course, also an event that was to held locally to them.
Yellow pages
I advertised in the yellow pages for a number of years but their prices just seemed to increase to an unrealistic level. The majority of people in the United Kingdom now have access to the web and for me this is very much the future; there will even be “internet houses” within a few years. Yellow pages or as it is now called Yell, has become more expensive when in reality probably less people are using it.
Advertising in the yellow pages did prove successful for me for a number of years however, and is certainly an area of marketing which could work for other small businesses.
Websites
I paid a company to design and build me a website around seven years ago and this has by far been the best marketing investment I have made thus far. I have worked hard to promote this site and it is now doing well in the major search engines.
Radio and television marketing
I can not really write too much about this form of advertising as I have not personally given it a go. Why not? I hear you ask. Well purely because I think that it costs too much money. That being said I have read reports about just how beneficial radio and TV adverts can be for a business.
I am sure there are many other ways of marketing a small business and I will seek them out in the future for my own business.
The above ideas are what I have learnt about and as you may have read, I have tried some of them myself with mixed success. Every business is obviously different and it is basically a form of trial and error to find which ones will work.
