Do you really know your clients?

It may sound like kind of an odd question, but think about it. Do you really know your customer? Do you know what they need, how they need it and how often? Do you know who they deal with, who their competition is, how much their profit margin is, etc? Without the answers to most, if not all of these questions and others how can you really provide a "service" to your client?

Get to know your customer - no really get to know them:
Most people think that getting to know their customer means knowing their name when they call, and what their favorite baseball team is (or insert any sport). Sure, this is a start, but you need to take the person out of the equation and think about the company as a whole. Just knowing Joe/Mary the sales person and what they like won't give you long term investment in that company.

You need to do your research, ask the tough questions and understand what it is you can do for your client in order to really provide them with a solution and not just another product or service. Lets face it, you aren't the only one they can go to and if Acme Corp down the street starts selling for less then you what stops them from going? If you've proven your worth and given them a solution, the thought won't even cross their mind to move away.

But I don't have the time to do the research!
Do you have the time to find a new client when they go away? Do you have the time to invest on competing with other quotes when they start shopping around? You need to make the time and invest into your clients, just as they are investing in you. If you personally don't have the time, then get one of your best employees, or hire a person you know can take on the task and inform you. Sure it may cost you a little, but in the long run you'll be able to sit down with the president of that company and tell them "they can't offer what I can, and I'm not just talking about my products and services".

It's not just about price - despite what you might think!
Even with online shopping so easy and competition becoming tighter and tighter, service, quality and attention to detail are important. Think about the last time you had a nice experience with a company and really felt like they paid attention to you. You probably told a few people about it and were somewhat surprised and pleased with the experience. So why not give that to your clients, and make sure you understand their needs and wants. That could mean the difference between competing with the competition and out performing the competition.

Remember: Quantity is only as good as the quality that's being produced

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Avoid Poor Contact List Managment

Have you ever received an email or postcard and thought to yourself. "why would I be getting this"? It's something that I've noticed more and more of lately and felt it was something worth addressing. Email list/contact list management is extremely important, especially when doing any type of mass emailing or mailing.

Grouping your contacts:
It's extremely important when you are running a business that you group your contact lists. Make sure that your customers are in one list, your vendors in another, and your family and friends in yet another. You don't want to be sending sales emails to vendors and funny jokes to customers. The best and probably easiest way to do this is to group your contacts by well defined roles such as customers, vendors, friends, wholesale, etc.

Segmenting your groups:
Now that you have your groups you'll want to look at those groups to see if they can be further segmented. For example if you have a group called customers you may need to further define those customers by type. Lets say you are a sporting goods store you may segment them into indoor, outdoor, male sports, female sports, water, hiking, biking, etc. It's not that people can't be in more then one group but you don't want people in groups they aren't interested in.

Why go through the hassle?
Why not? By grouping and segmenting your contacts you are giving yourself a better chance of matching your emailing/mailing message to the correct person. Now that you have the right message in front of the right person you stand a better chance of converting that person into a repeat customer. Think about it, if you are really into fishing and you get an email talking about the 50% off sale for all fishing gear aren't you at least somewhat interested in what they are offering? I would be. Now think about the opposite, if you get an email about swimming gear and you don't like to swim, that message is completely lost on you.

Won't it take forever to group my contacts?
It may not be a 5 minute process, but after you have the initial grouping done moving forward should be fairly painless. You can also utilize mass emailing programs that allow your visitors to select what information (group) they want to receive.

It's about good customer relations:
Grouping and segmenting your contacts is another way of making sure you are serving your customers in the best possible way. You aren't hassling them with information that doesn't make sense to them, and you make them feel like you really understand their interests.

Remember: It's about providing relevant information to customers, not bombarding them with offers they'll never use.

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Is FREE now a four letter word?

Have all of the uses of the word FREE started to make it sound more and more like a four letter word? Have we been bombarded with so many offers that this once alluring word is now a warning sign? Wary buyers are now more than ever skeptical of even the most honest deal and unfortunately one word has become the victim. So what do you do about this and how do you still give away something for "free" without using the word?

Let people see the value in "FREE"!
Since you can't just market your item as free, you need to give it some form of value. So for example instead of writing a headline such as "Free widget with the purchase of another", try something like "Get more value with the purchase of your next widget". So now it's not that you are getting something for nothing, you are getting more for your money. With a simple change of language, you have made people think differently about your "FREE" item.

It comes down to a matter of semantics. People have been programmed to think that anything "FREE" must be cheap and worthless. You have to let them see the light, by rethinking your approach, even if it's just a simple altering of language.

What if it's just one item I'm giving away?
OK, so you only have the one item and you are giving it away for free to a certain number of people or to a certain demographic. How do you combat the negative "FREE" connotation? You can try demonstrating it and leaving "samples" for people to take. Remember, just because it doesn't say free doesn't mean people don't understand what you mean. Sample is a word that has become almost a synonym for free; use it to your advantage.

Put time and money into your free item/service:
If you want people to feel that the item/service that you are giving away for free is valuable, you have to make it look like you took the time to give it value. You know when something was done on a whim and when something was taken seriously and had a lot of thought and effort put into it. Just because you aren't making immediate money doesn't mean you shouldn't spend a little to make things "pop".

Remember: Choose your words wisely and you can get people to think about something in a whole new way.

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Simply Business On the Web - Part 3

Here are a few more tips from the Simply Business series. The idea behind this series is to help you realize that even the small things matter, and sometimes we overlook the things that seem like everyone just knew.

Discounts are not just a sales tactic:
Discounts are great and can come in a variety of different formats. You can offer coupons, referral savings, buy-one-get-one, purchase amount discounts and so much more. A discount is more then just a way of increasing sales though, it's also a way of retaining customers. Lets take for example that customer who just bought from you. They could have bought from anyone, but they decided to buy from your store for a reason. So why not give them another reason to come back next time? Put a 10% discount card in their package, or send them a free gift and put a note in there saying "thank you for your purchase, we appreciate you choosing us, and look forward to serving you in the future". With that simple gesture you most likely have made a customer for life (or at least a long time to come), and it cost you very little in the grand scheme of things.

Employees are just as important as customers and sales:
Too many times employers take their employees for granted. Many employees feel under valued and over worked. Typically when employees start to feel this way they also start to become less productive and more annoyed with their job, which reflects on their interactions with clients and co-workers. Now you may be thinking that you run an online store and no-one notices, but you'd be surprised how much "attitude" can carry through over the phone or in an email. Treating your employees with the respect and appreciation they deserve is important. After all, if they weren't there doing their job who would be?

You do not know everything and that's a good thing:
Many business owners think that they know it all, and have seen everything the business world has to throw at them. Guess what, you don't know it all and you certainly haven't seen everything, but that's not a bad thing. Being able to realize that you don't know everything opens you up to a world of possibilities and understanding that there are things out there that you haven't seen keeps your business agile. Think of any sports team that starts to get comfortable with winning. They think they are going to win all the time, and can't be beat; "they've seen it all". Then it happens, the underdog who's lost every other game they've played comes into town and wins, beating the undefeated team. The team that keeps on their toes and realizes they can lose will be open to new tactics and the possibility that something new might be thrown at them.

Remember: You can learn just as much if not more from your failures as you can from your successes. The key is to make sure you implement what you've learned and don't repeat it.

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