“In Business” by Roland Millward

For a business to do well  it needs to build credibilty with its customers. This is something that once you have a customer is relatively easy to do. By offering good service and value, fulfilling your promises and so forth will be credibility.

However what can you do to build credibility with people who have not yet used your services?

This has to be done by the impression that you give about your business from the first point of contact. How the is the phone is answered? Is it answered quickly and with a friendly voice? Are emails replied to promptly and brochures posted quickly? Your business must be run in a friendly and efficient manner. The website should look great and give client the information they need along with brochures and other material, making sure it is of the highest quality.

Every contact with a customer must reflect what your business will do for that customer when they commit to an order. Once that order is placed then you can continue to build on your reputation and keep that customer for life!

The title of this post may sound strange.

However there is an important sales principle behind this.

When you sell a product what are actually doing? Are you selling a product or what the product will do?
The saying “it’s the sizzle that sells the bacon” is very true.

Imagine the difference between a packet of wrapped bacon on the supermarket shelf when compared to walking past a cafe with its door open and the sounds and smell of frying bacon (vegetarians please imagine harder!) What is most appealing? In essence the product is the same but now your senses tell you what it is for and how good it is even before you taste it.

When you are selling a product or service work on the sizzle. What can this product or service do for your customer? Give them a taste let them see the sizzle. Create a ‘wow’ factor. Then when they do they will really want to buy from you.

One of the best sources of business has to be when you get referrals from your customers. Now often we wait until a customer recommends our service to someone and such recommendations are greatly appreciated. However that is leaving things to chance. Is there a way of increasing those recommendations?

The answer is ‘yes’.

You can ask your customers for referrals! How? Well simply put you could say, “so John which one of your work colleagues has been showing an interest in getting xxx..” You may well find that John has been talking about his future purchase and others too said they would like one. There is your referral.

For customers on your mailing list you could ask them to write down the names and address of 2 or 3 people that they feel would like to know about your product or service. You can then follow those people up with a letter saying that ‘John has said you would be interested in xxx and you are pleased to tell them that you can help’.

There are many ways you can get referrals so don’t delay and don’t leave it to chance. Build into your sales pitch and follow ups a referral system. Remember too that referrals are more likely to buy from you than people that respond to an advertisement.

Good copywriting is vital for you to succeed with your sales letters, advertisements, web pages, news releases etc.

Here is a formula that will help you develop your material into something that will really work.

We will use the AIDA principle.

A: Attention
You need to capture your customers attention. Don’t write about how good you are. Write about something that will solve your customers problem or fulfill a need.

I: Interest
Once you have their attention it would be a shame to lose it! Keep their interest by adding relevant material that follows your opening lines. Show how you will solve that problem of fulfill that need.

D: Desire
Create or arouse in your customer Desire. Give them a powerful reason to buy your product or service.

Action:
Make sure you tell your customer what they have to do now. How do they order?

By using AIDA it will help you focus on your customer not you or your business. Customers are not really interested that your business has been operating for 30 years. They want a product or service. How will you supply it? How long you have been established and other such points can be tucked under logos and so forth but there is no need to promote that overtly.

If a person is looking for a plumber because they have a burst pipe they want to see things like: Call us anytime 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. We guarantee to be with you in 2 hours! Emergency telephone helpline! These are things that will solve their problem.

Sit down and write with specific problems and solutions in mind and target customers accordingly. Remember AIDA and you will find your copywriting will be greatly improved.

With millions of websites how can you make sure that yours is successful?

There are 3 principles that you need to follow to make your website work. We can remember these by using the letters A C C. What do these letters stand for?

A is for Attraction
Your website must be attractive to visitors. It must be easy to read and grab the viewers attention in 8 seconds. People that visit the web are by nature looking for information quickly and they need to see that your website will offer what they want in a few seconds. Make sure that is the case with your landing pages. If you are using per per click it is vital that the landing page responds directly to the search terms used and that the page they land on is the one that will provide the information searched for.

Your website is your shop window to the world and once inside your web pages it is your store / office. It needs to represent quality, trustworthiness, efficiency, value, service and all the other qualities that customers are looking for from a business.

C is for Conversion
It is one thing getting customers to your website and staying on it for a while. You now need to convert those visitors into customers.
It is a good policy to try and capture the details of as many visitors to your website as possible by using an online form via a company such as Aweber (this will be vital for the next stage). How do you capture these details? There are 2 ways: You could require everyone has to ‘log in’ to access your website. This method I would not recommend and you will lose more customers than you will gain. The best way is to have a sign up form for a FREE gift such as a FREE eBook or other promotional tool. Aweber will provide you the forms to do this. Here is an example from my website FromeMortgages.co.uk. Notice on the home page there is a drop down form that appears. It is set so that returning visitors will only see it after a space of 5 days between visits. On the left column there is a ‘sign up’ form that appears on all pages. I am only collecting names and email addresses but you can collect more information.

Once you have customers information what is the next step?

C is for Communication

It tis said that it can take around 7 contacts with a person before they become a customer. Good communication from you is vital to build the trust that a potential customer will feel before he buys. This is where email using an auto responder is vital. Then we must not forget the telephone and old fashioned mail.
When you keep in touch with customers it does not mean that each time you try to sell them something. In fact is far better that you don’t. Use your communications to keep them updated. You might tell them about a change on your website or maybe you are extending your stores opening hours or closing for a holiday. Give them information not hard sell. Build up trust for you and your business. Don’t bombard them with forms of communication so that they will begin to get weary. Vary the style and type and make it genuine. For instance if you have posted a brochure of free book then a follow up phone to ask if they have received it would be a good idea, but again on that phone call be brief and don’t push for a sale. This may seem strange for those hard nosed direct sales types but the softly softly approach works far better even if it seems to be a slower process for the impatient one.

So there is my brief of summary of ACC. Take a good look at your website and see how you can put ACC into practice.
You can follow me on Twitter for regular updates.

Many people dream of starting their own business. Some of them do and a some succeed and some fail.
When is the right time to start a business?
The answer probably has less to do with the economy than the person themselves. Preparation is essential if an entrepreneur is going to be successful. The product or service must be good and the business run in an effective manner. One thing that is A Must – CASH-.

Cash is king and when you start a business you must have enough cash to see you through the initial start up costs and your living expenses until the business can sustain your living costs. If you have the ideas, the skills and the cash then start your business.

A recession can be a good time to start because of a number of reasons. One is that if you need business premises they will be more readily available and cheaper to rent or buy at this time. Many goods have been reduced in price so deals can be had on office equipment, machinery, cars, trucks and so on.

The other great thing is of course that by starting in a recession your business will be well placed to grow and do even better when a recession ends.

Many successful businesses today started in a recession and they are well placed to survive this one because they know how to survive and indeed thrive in these times.

So if you want to start a business go for it! Plan well, get good advice and you can succeed.

Follow me on Twitter!

As 2008 comes to an end it would be a good time to do two things.

Firstly look back on the last year and analyse your strengths and weaknesses the success and failures. What can you learn from these? Why did some things work and others did not.

Secondly take those lessons and apply them to your stratgey for 2009. What are you going to do to make this year better than the last?

Every business needs to adapt and change to new trends and changing markets. With the economy likely to be on the downturn in 2009 you will need to make sure that you use every tool at your disposal to keep your business prospering. It will still be important to remember the statement that ‘turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’ in a market where competition will see prices being cut dramatically. Whilst you have to compete are there ways that you can generate sales that will still keep you profitable?

Take time to think through your plans and have brainstorming sessions with your associates to see what ideas you can implement.

Best wishes and success to you all!

Using email is a powerful way to keep in touch with your customers both old and new. It is quite easy and inexpensive to set up an automated system. I can recommend Aweber which is a system I use and have found to be easy and cost effective. Aweber are also great at helping you get the most from the system.

Imagine this. You receive an enquiry to your website. You can generate an automatic response and then a series of emails set at a time that you choose to follow up on your client. You can write these either in HTML or plain language. Clients have to ‘opt in’ to the first request so that you know that they are genuine enquiries and not some fake email address.

Take a look at Aweber today and see how it works. You can a a FREE TEST DRIVE and check it out.

In today’s electronic and virtual world it is important to have a good website. It may that you do not use it to sell goods but that it is simply a showcase for what you do.
Make sure that it looks professional and reflects quality of service. A good website does not have to contain many pages but it should enable the viewer to see what your company offers and is easy to use.
Seek professional help on design and search engine optimization and that you use good copywriters for the material you place on the site. It is a good idea that people can contact you easily, so make sure that there are telephone numbers and a contact form that are easily found. Check out the websites of your competition to make sure that your website does not look poor against theirs and if it does improve it immediately.
Once you have a website make sure that you keep it up to date and occasionally refresh it to keep it looking interesting to visitors. You are advised also to develop links with other websites as that will enable you to rank better on search engines and drive traffic between the linked websites.
There are plenty of good web-designers so search out a few and see what they can do for you.

Most businesses will fail because of either over spending or a poor planning. Every business should have a Business Plan from the very start and for it to be re-evaluated at least once a year. A good business plan will allow you to make changes as you see how your business is progressing or not. It should not be set in stone so that it may prevent your business from growing or changing to adapt to new circumstances.

Writing a business plan sounds very daunting to many people. There is software that help you and I would recommend that you look at some of the companies offering this. For example there is Bplans.com where you can download software or view free business plans. They also have a UK site. You can also try out a template found at this link.

Having a good business plan is also vital if you ever need to raise finance for your business and most businesses will need to do that at some point in their history.
If you have not written a plan then do research on how to write one if you are not sure and then do it! It will pay dividends for you and the time spent in doing it will also focus your mind on your business and you will no doubt be surprised about the ideas that will flow as a result.