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We all know people who have lots of contacts in their phones or diary, but do they really know which one’s bring in the business or raise their profile?

The following article by Andy Lopata, Business Networking Strategist, which really struck a cord and I wanted to share it with you:

We all know the phrase ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. Networking, however, does not thrive by that maxim. A culture has developed where success at a networking event is defined by the number of business cards you collect and the strength of a profile online is measured by the number of ‘Friends’, ‘Followers’ or ‘Connections’.

This culture is both short-sighted and misguided. The author and entrepreneur Seth Godin put it well when he said “Networking is always important when it’s real and it’s always a useless distraction when it’s fake.” Mass connections with no interaction lead to ‘fake’ networking and a distraction from what you are doing, click to read the rest of the article

10 Top Tips for seizing sales opportunities by Jo Owen, taken from the book “How to Influence: The Art of Making Things Happen”.

1. Two Ears & One Mouth. The best sales people all have two ears and one mouth.  And they use them in that proportion.  They listen twice as much as they talk.  Listening is the secret weapon of sales.
2. Walk in Your Clients Shoes. See the world through their eyes.  Understand what they want.  Sell what they need to buy, not just what you want to sell.  Understand what they fear and dislike so that you can pre-empt their objections.  If you want them to dance, play their tune.
3. Your Best Prospects are Your Existing Clients. Typically, it costs seven times as much to sell to a new customer as it does to an existing customer.  Existing customers tend to buy more: you know what they need and how they buy and you have an established track record.  Selling is not the preserve of the lone hunter seeking new clients.  Many of the best sales people are farmers who carefully cultivate existing clients.
4. Answer the Questions, Just Like in a School Exam. You may think you have the best answer or product, but the best product on earth is useless if it does not meet the customer’s needs. “Forty Two” is a good answer to the question “what is six times seven”.  It is a terrible answer to the question “how does your product compare to the competition?”.
5. Build Trust. Lets make this simple: would you buy from someone you did not trust? Buyers buy a promise of performance.  The promise is as good as the person and firm that stand behind it.  Trust is both rapport (show you have similar interests and values) and credibility (can you be relied on to do what you say)?
6. Win Win. Don’t try to defeat your client.  You can fool anyone once: they will never be your customer again and will trash your reputation at every opportunity.  Give your clients a win – make them feel good about buying from you.  Allow them to tell a story to their boss, peers, colleagues, friends and family which shows that they bought smart.
7. Know Your Customer. Buyers may be interested in price, but what does the rest of the organisation want: reliability, flexibility, speed to market customisation or profit? Get beyond the buyer’s office.
8. Persistence Pays. The harder you try, and practice, the luckier you get.  You learn more about what does and does not work.  And if you don’t try, you don’t sell and you don’t learn.  Selling is a craft skill, it takes effort to learn.
9. Make it Easy. Clients are really not interested in your internal procedures, policies and priorities.  They have enough problems.  Make it easy for them to buy, simple for them to pay and smooth enough for them to use your product or service.
10. Enjoy it: You Only Excel at What you Enjoy. To sell is to see human nature in all its bizarre variety. Make the most of every moment.

The first question people normally ask me is what can I do next to market my business?

Before we start with something new, you need to unearth the goldmine’s that are in your business right now that will generate you money and build loyalty with your customer base.

The last 18 months have been hard on the economy and businesses.  Companies are holding on to their purse strings tightly.  I have seen a lot of businesses who have reduced their prices in order to stay in business.  But this is a very dangerous strategy, which will ultimately harm the business and is often unnecessary.

FACT: Very few people actually buy on price, even in a Recession.  If you have sold something on price that customer didn’t fully understand the benefit or value of what they have bought.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a few products and services which are very much price led.  But for the majority of businesses, right now there is a goldmine of opportunity by offering the customer real value.  Convince them of the value and they will paradoxically be prepared to pay you MORE in the Recession than before.

RULE:  Don’t cut your prices look first at how you can increase value.

TIP: One of the quickest and easiest ways to increase value is to offer a Guarantee that is really powerful.

Simply really, when you stop and think.  Guarantees reduce risk and fear.

When a customer makes a purchase, they are initially taking all the risk. By eliminating the risk you remove the barriers that stop them from making a decision to buy from you.

The truth is the customer can’t lose. 

When I tell my clients that I offer “Money Back” Guarantee, the first thing that they say to me is that they couldn’t afford to do that.  They would be out of business within a week.  Their customers would take advantage.   Really!

Over the last couple of years I have worked with a number of companies.  I offer a 100% Money Back Guarantee – No Questions.  When I tell clients this, they think I am mad.  But the truth is, this simply guarantee has brought me more word of mouth work then I could actually do.  Yes, on a number of occasions I have given the money back.  On reflection, at the time, there were two problems at play:

i)             The client didn’t under the value of my work, no matter how hard I tried to communicate it to them.

ii)            Long term, these customers would have ended up costing me more money than I was invoicing them for.

Can you relate to this kind of business?

So what do I mean by “give a great Guarantee?”

Where possible, offer a full unconditional 100% money-back Guarantee. If a customer is anything but completely and utterly delighted with your products or service, you give them their money back.  No questions, no arguments, no delays!

And yes, I really do mean a 100% unconditional Guarantee.

It is a quirk of human nature that the longer you offer the Guarantee, the less you’ll have to honour it. i.e. if you offer a 30-day guarantee, by the time day 21 arrives, if they’re not sure… they’ll come back for their money.  If the same Guarantee is for 12 months, the customer relaxes and the risk to your business is reduced. .

I can still hear you staying I am mad and questioning why you should even consider giving a Guarantee like this?

When companies I work with really push on this point, I get them to look at their business and potential problems which could cause a client to ask for their money back.  But that is a totally different post to this, which I will follow up with shortly.

I won’t lie to you…. I know sound like Nessa from Gavin & Stacey…. Yes, you will have to honour your Guarantee.  At the end of the day, business is a numbers game.  You work out the maths – if someone asks for their money back on X sale, but you make an extra XYZ sales, who is the winner?

Goldmine No.1, Guarantees are one of the best ways to strengthen your business in the Recession and set you apart from your competition.

Please test a strong Guarantee and let us know how it goes.

Plus watch out for next week’s Goldmine.

Today you are the Brand. Check out the damage to Tiger Woods bottom line. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/golf/article-1245538/Tiger-losing-million-dollars-day-Woods-pays-price-fall-grace.html

Most businesses I talk to tell me that when it comes to marketing, they feel overwhelmed.    So many decisions, options and tools to use.  Which one will work, which one will not cost much, which one will take up the least of my time??

With so many options and decisions to make, fear creeps in and this then stops a business in its tracks when it comes to their marketing.

To be truthfully, working on your marketing is one of the most important tasks you need to do in order to be successful. I want to share with you 10 tips that have been tried and test over the years with my clients that you can use today, to build your marketing plan and reach more potential clients.

1. Give them what they want. Most businesses market what they deliver. The key point is to find out what your clients really need. Understanding people will unlock potential profit doors for you. What you do is the solution, find the problem.
2. Emotionally engage your audience. You need to keep them interested and coming back for more. Story telling is an age old success story, look at the success of Hollywood and TV. Find out what their questions are and answer them, provide them with tips, advice and back up with case studies and testimonials.
3. Competition. Look at the marketing methods used by the companies in your field that you look up to. What are they doing? What can you copy. Analyze their techniques and apply them to your own business?
4. Action.  Simply knowing the right business model or the right techniques will not give you the edge. It takes more than just knowing what to do in your business to achieve extraordinary results. You have to take Action!
5. Dig deeper. Find out what it really is that makes your business unique. I can assure you, you will be very surprised. Make this the focus for your marketing. Don’t get into the routine of just doing marketing for the sake of checking off boxes on your “to do” list.
6. Personal. Uncover your story, what’s your background and history. People buy from people.
7. Transparency. Tell the truth. Become the expert. Reveal things about your business and include the problems and weaknesses you have overcome. This really adds to your marketing.
8. Keep it simple. I client I started working with late last year, started calling his clients and picked up additional work. Simple!
9. Don’t be afraid. As you engage people, there will be some who are going to like you and some who don’t. This is just a fact in business. The truth is that if you engage people you can sell more. It is easier to sell to someone who likes you then someone who does!
10. Change.  Remember that things change.  Find what works for your business, implemented and keep going back to your customers to find out what they want.  As their needs change, look to see if you can adapt to their needs.  Great if you can, if not, you need to find new clients.

You don’t have to do all the steps above. Start off with one and take it from there. The key is to focus on the steps. They will help you develop a winning marketing plan.

If you have any questions, drop me a comment and I will get back to you

Did you know that internet marketing covers:

• Your website(s)
• Blogs
• Electronical sent newsletters
• Email
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Social Media i.e. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube

So how do you get started….

1. Find out what your clients are using to stay in touch with what is going on.  You could simply just ask them or put together a quick and simple questionnaire and offer a prize – bottle of champagne.
2. Work out what your objectives are.  Do you want to go your mailing list?  Do you want more visitors to your website?  Do you want to be seen as the expert in your field/areas on a blog?  Keep focused on them.
3. Test, Test, Test.  Set yourself a goals.  For example if you are going to use email marketing than make sure it comes with software for you to see who opened it, who it bounced to, who forwarded it and who asked to be removed from your list.  Without these simply facts, you don’t know if your email campaign is working and you could be spending valuable time doing tasks and it isn’t giving your any results.
4. Keep it simple.  Is is obvious I know, but it still surprises me, how many people use technology just for the sake of it.  Check that what you are doing is adding value.
5. Add Value.  Today’s customer is very savvy, and they know when the are being sold to.  Your customers are using the internet, right at this very moment to find out information.  You could provided this information from one of the many articles you have read recently.  Tell people, help them out.
6. Don’t expect instant results.  With everything in life, consistency and persistence is what counts.
7. Perfect as you go.  You don’t have to be a expert on using internet marketing techniques.  Learn as you go, watch your results, listen to what your customers are asking for and help them. out.

Let me know how you get on.  If you have any questions, drop me a note and we will get back to you a.s.a.p.