Category: Education

Gather the Troops

Posted on by Michele Margetts
Today I’d like to chat about the different types of support staff you need and what makes them so important.
 
There are essentially three key roles that need to be filled to set your business up for success:
  • The Technician
  • The Manager

  • The Entrepreneur

    All of these roles need to be played simultaneously by different people with the right talents. It’s all about balance.

    The Technician
    This person represents the present and all that needs to be done for the physical aspects of the business building process. They are the “doer”. This is usually the most visible person in the entire operation.

    The Manager
    This person represents the past and works to fix problems by learning from past mistakes. They are on the practical side of the business and are in charge of putting together the company and overseeing the planning.

    The Entrepreneur
    This person represents the future and the vision for the business. They are responsible for the creative side of the company and are always considering ways to enhance products/services, business image, branding, and more.

    All three of these characters are essential to the success of any business and to build a solid foundation from the start, you need to work harder to find the right people to put in these roles. Obviously, you need to be one of these key people, but ensure you find the role that fits your skills and talents, not necessarily what you THINK you should be doing.

    This may be a hard process for you as you will need to relinquish some control over the business and instill trust in people to allow them to do their jobs.
    Remember, our business coaches can help you through this entire process and teach you how to avoid falling victim to e-myths when you try our FREE test drive.
 

Are You Aiding & Abetting E-Myths?

Posted on by Michele Margetts
We are going to embark upon a journey through the world of e-myths and debunk them to help you avoid falling into the e-myth trap. First, let’s take a minute to talk about what an e-myth is. An entrepreneurial myth, or e- myth, is an assumption that anyone can succeed at business with:
  • Desire
  • Some capital
  • Projected a targeted profit
This sounds great, but it is just not realistic. Think of starting a business as a marathon. Sure, everyone starts out of the gate at a record pace, but after a few miles, people start slowing, and some drop out entirely. Building a successful business takes stamina and agility. The reality is that there are many different facets to a successful business and none of them can be ignored if you plan to find success. Let’s take a minute to talk about the entrepreneurial seizure. This defines the roller coaster of emotions that comes with starting, nurturing, and the potential failure of a business. The emotions that occur, in order, are:
  • Exhilaration
  • Exhaustion
  • Despair
  •  Sense of self-loss
This is usually caused by the e-myths and assumptions we talked about. You can get your hopes so high on the instant success that even the smallest lag and you are sent into an emotional tailspin. This is also brought on by the stark realization that you can’t do it all and will need help in the areas where you don’t have the knowledge. Now, faced with limited choices you may feel like you need to back out and hide, but don’t do this. Use our FREE test drive to get the business coaching you need to avoid feeling overwhelmed and defeated.

How Well Do You Know Your Vendors?

Posted on by Michele Margetts
It’s extremely important to build relationships with your vendors and those around you can bring in new customers/clients and increase awareness of your company branding. The people you work directly with on your products and services are really the ones with the most to gain when you find success. By taking the time to get to know them, you’ll find a whole host of opportunities you didn’t realize were there. Look for great ways to offer your vendors rewards for helping grow your business and everyone wins. One of the ways you can do this is by offering performance-based incentives that are much larger than their normal charges. Here’s the step-by-step process for putting together a partnership with a vendor:
  1. Approach all the vendors you work with and offer an incentive based on performance.
  2. Put the generous incentive plan together from their perspective, even take suggestions.
  3. Develop a clear, concise, and easy-to-track incentive plan, this will increase competition between vendors and therefore higher performance levels.
  4. Encourage subsequent sales instead of focusing only on the initial sale. By doing this you can give away more of the profit from the initial sale to your vendors and make higher profits off the back-end products. Encourage:
    • Future sales
    • Upsell better and more profitable products/services
    • Cross-sell to additional products
  5. Create an incentive plan that’s irresistible to your vendors by offering generous, exclusive compensation.
Think of all the vendors you work with and the creative ways you can put together an incentive plan that entices them to be part of your business. Use their talents, capabilities, and connections and you’ll both be winners.
Putting together an incentive plan doesn’t have to be a complicated process. Use our FREE test drive to come up with some great ideas and put your incentive plan together for maximum results.

Telemarketing is NOT the Anti-Christ

Posted on by Michele Margetts

  Today you’ll learn how to use direct mail marketing and, yes, telemarketing to your full advantage. I know, the word    “telemarketing” might as well be four letters, but there is a way to help customers feel like they are getting personal     attention and keep them from blocking your number!

 With the success direct mail marketing has had and the availability of computers, these can be used as a powerful marketing tool for your success. Telemarketing is best for high priced, high margin products/services.

Here are the key steps to putting together a highly effective direct mail marketing program:

  1. List all benefits customers will get from the purchase of your products and services.
  2. Pick the single most powerful benefit out of that list.
  3. Build an attention-getting headline around that benefit. Remember to use emotion-fulfill the desire to be young, wealthy, desired, popular or successful.
  4. Develop a sales letter using the headline you created to grab attention, provide information and motivate customers to act.
  5. Put together supplementary items, such as a brochure, order form, reply envelope or note that encourages them to read the letter.
  6. Rent or purchase a mailing list.
  7. Compare cost of mailing vs. cost per order.
  8. Continue to test and refine your direct mail marketing plan.

You can see how direct mail marketing can help you find a local or even country-wide target market to send letters or postcards to and draw in new clientele and customers. Fine-tuning your marketing campaign will bring better results and therefore lower the overall cost of the campaign.

       To be successful in telemarketing you need to:

  • Put together a plan, so you know exactly what you want to accomplish during the call.
  • Develop a list of topics to discuss and the questions you want to present around these topics.
  • Input verbiage checking to see if you are calling at a good time.
  • Include enough questions to keep the conversation interesting, but not too many to sound like you are interrogating.
  • Start with broad questions and narrow your focus as the conversation continues.
  • Offer feedback to show them you are paying attention and appreciate their time.
  • Don’t insult their intelligence or manipulate them.
  • Listen first, talk second.
  • Be relaxed and conversational.

    Telemarketing doesn’t have to be the trauma it’s made out to be. You can put together an honest, personal and effective telemarketing campaign that is endearing, informative and gets the job done. Think of how you would want to be treated on a marketing call. Ask your friends and family what they hate most about the telemarketing calls they get and work hard to craft your plan in a better way.

    “When selling by telephone, you have approximately thirty seconds to convince the customer to listen to you. You need an opening statement that captures their attention, conveys who you are, what you want and why the prospect should listen.” Jay Abraham

    It’s easy to see how direct mail marketing and telemarketing can positively affect your business by bringing in new customers and increasing the level of awareness about your products, services and company branding. Our FREE test drive offers the resources and tools you need to work through these processes and put together the best marketing plan you can.

Educate Your Customers

Posted on by Michele Margetts

Educate them about what, you may be thinking. Well, consider this, many businesses focus solely on attracting new customers, but you NEED to spend a good chunk of your time retaining current and former customers. These are people you already know to be a good sales potential…they’ve already bought from you!

Take the time to market and sell new products to your old customers and less time trying to sell old products to new customers and you will see a drastic change in your sales, customer quality and branding position.

Here are a couple of key elements to use to retain your current customers:

  1. Stay in contact: This means by phone, email, e-newsletter, in person-by pigeon if you have too!
  2. Post-Purchase Assurance: This means you need to follow up with customers. Your customers need to feel like they are being supported for their purchase and with the item they purchased. How many times have you purchased a product, then felt completely abandoned? Something as simple as a Thank You note with your contact or customer service information can go along way in retaining a great customer.
  3. Deals & Guarantees: Always offer your current customers the best deals and guarantees you have. Show them you appreciate their business or even come up with a club specifically to reward loyal customers. You can also do this with a preferred pricing option.
  4. Integrity: Using good business practices and simply upholding integrity, dignity and honesty go along way with customers. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of swindling and crap out there and the safer and more confident you make your customers feel, the more they will trust you and that makes for an amazingly supportive and loyal customer.

There are three cornerstone ideas to a successful business:

  • Quality product/service
  • Offering useful products/services that solve a problem for or enhance the life of a customer
  • Offer subjects your customers find interesting

Use this approach of educating your customers and offering them real information and insight and you will be rewarded with loyalty and success.

Stop wasting all your time on new prospects while your current customers fall by the wayside!

As Jay Abraham says, “Your best prospects are your existing customers. If you’ve been putting all your marketing efforts into acquiring new customers, stop and diverts some of your resources into reselling, upselling, cross-selling to those same customers. In every ways possible – through package inserts, regular mailings, special offers – stay in touch with those customers and get them used to buying from you.”

So, there it is! Remember, we can help you put together the resources and tools to do exactly that. We can help you educate your customers and you can watch the benefits pay offer many-fold.