How To Stimulate More Business Part 3

We’ll pick up with going down our list of seven strategies that can help you stimulate new business, increase business from existent customers and build repeat business. Let me remind you that, you may not be able to use all of them in your business but you can certainly use some of them.

In your last Success Marketing Strategy, I spoke about the first five

1.A Frequent Buyer Program
2.Discounting
3.Premiums
4.Packaging
5.Prepay

Let’s continue this discussion with the last two:

Six, the acceptance of major credit cards. Every business should accept MasterCard, VISA, American Express, Diners Club and now the new Discovery Card. Of course, retail stores, online marketers, and restaurants almost have to honor these cards but just about any business can.

I’ve talked doctors, lawyers, hair stylists and other professionals to accept these cards and use them to increase their business, implement price increases with less client resistance and reduce collection problems. This really is a simple thought process. The easier you make it for the customer to buy and the more payment options you offer the customer the better.

Seven, regular mailings to past and present customers or clients. I think the single most effective marketing strategy that any business can use to build customer loyalty, to retain customers and to stimulate more frequent purchasing by customers is the publication and distribution of direct mail.

I’ve often found that a monthly newsletter is an extremely powerful, cost-effective marketing method. When you keep in touch with your clientele with your own newsletter you do all of these valuable things.

#1: You create a habit on the part of your customers. They expect to receive your newsletter and they get in the habit of reading it.

#2: You stay on the top of the consciousness in your customers minds.

#3: You can pass along useful information and ideas that your customers appreciate.

#4: You can continue to demonstrate your expertise in your field.

#5: You can stimulate word-of-mouth advertising. And

#6: You can advertise sales, special offers, new products, new services, new locations and so on in your own publication.

Accountants, attorneys, dentists, chiropractors, medical doctors - these professionals have learned how effective this idea is and many of these professionals put out their own newsletters on a regular basis but this same exact same idea could be used by many different types of businesses.

The beauty parlor could put out a newsletter on skin care, beauty and fashion tips. The restaurant could put out a newsletter on local entertainment, recipes and shopping tips. The office equipment company could put out a newsletter on management and efficiency tips. The online marketer can put out an online newsletter to their subscription list for little or no money.

Now that you know the seven strategies that can help you stimulate new business, increase business from existent customers and build repeat business, you need to give some thought into how to use them effectively.

I’ll be covering that topic in your next Success Marketing Strategy in just a couple of days.

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,

Dan Kennedy

Announcing! An Easy Guide to the Eight Best Ways to Still Make a Fortune from Scratch in Australia and New Zealand Today

If you really want to have the odds stacked in your favour, identify the areas of ‘highest probability’ and concentrate your efforts there!

High Probability Area of Opportunity #1

Own and develop an extraordinary business.
It is my opinion that the best way to make a fortune is to own a business. And the type of business you choose will determine the speed with which you achieve your goal. However, there is one area where I differ from most when it comes to owning a business and that is - I believe you will never make anywhere near as much money owning a business as you will selling a business.

It’s not so much lateral thinking that will propel you towards success in business, as being able to recognise a successful business opportunity and model it. I would much rather be a wealthy copier than a broke original thinker.

High Probability Area of Opportunity #2.

Be exclusive and have control of your product.
Massive wealth is most often linked to exclusive ownership. Simply, if someone else has control of your destiny, they can change the economics of your business, alter your marketing rights, impede your creativity, sell the parent company or otherwise unexpectedly interfere in your business, you don’t really own your own business.

High Probability Area Opportunity #3

Serve Serve Serve
This particularly equates to the Baby Boomers born 1945 – 1965. They represent the greatest single opportunity any one of us is ever going to be fortunate enough to encounter. They will earn more and spend more than any group of people in the history of mankind!
Most of the jobs being created in Australia today relate to service, and on closer inspection, service to the Baby Boomer. A great example of this is the explosion of home services (cleaners, ironing, gardeners, and handymen)

High Probability Area of Opportunity #4

Duplicate & Multiply. Find or create a system, a methodology that produces a profit, even a small one and duplicate, duplicate. I call it the ‘cookie cutter’ principle.
When you have a business that works in one place, there is almost always another dozen, hundreds or even thousands of places where it will work. Once there was only one McDonalds, one Subway, one Target, and one Woolworths … even one BP Garage.

High Probability Area of Opportunity #5

Profit from the Age of Information
Most likely in your parent’s time, it was the Industrial Revolution, which determined the pursuits of one’s working life.
Today, of course, it’s the Age of Information. The most valuable commodity of our time is not real estate, nor precious gems, gold or oil. It is “specialist information”. People with lots of money will pay you well to ‘know what you know.’

High Probability Area of Opportunity #6

Go Direct.
Define your message to market match and go direct to that niche.

A recent survey conducted of 100 mixed businesses, in relation to their use of direct marketing, revealed a meagre 18% using direct marketing, yet 90% of that 18% described it as the most effective sales and marketing method they had.

High Probability Area of Opportunity #7.

Create Widgets by Creative & Clever Combinations
McDonald’s have made a fortune doing just this. Creating combinations of products and giving them generic names which people can use to simplify their ordering process. The end result is that McDonalds create a new advertising program with little or no disruption to business and they up-sell clients by increasing the sale.

You can take virtually any product or service, add other products or service, give it a title, then market it to your clients.

High Probability Area of Opportunity #8

Become Famous because fame and fortune do go together.
The best way to become famous, for the average individual, is to be provocative and predictive. If you are in real estate sales, write a book, called “How to Buy a Home With Little or No Money Down and Sell it For Thousands More $$ Than You Paid For It.”

People would be pretty interested in that and, more importantly, so would the media. The secret is to be outrageous or make predictions. People love predictions, just look at the boom in the ‘horoscope’ industry.

My recommendation is that you combine as many of the “8 Best Ways to Still Make a Fortune in Australia from Scratch” as you can.

Committed to Multiplying Your Profits and Guilty of Conspiracy to Create Capitalism,

Mal Emery

As I teach in my Renegade Millionaire System, it’s not just about how much money you make but how you make it.

A lot of people make a lot of money - but in careers or businesses that entrap them, obligate them, burden them, stress them, bore them. The information marketing business is a UNIQUELY LIBERATING business. That’s why I call the legions of info-marketers who’ve created or vastly improved their LIVES with my methods ‘The Most Unusual Millionaires’ Society In The World.

Just being a millionaire in net worth and/or earning a millionaire’s typical income is no longer admission to a special Society. Certainly not among our Members.

Really, not even among the general population. Yes, it’s only about 2% to 5% of the population, but then that’s about 4-million to 10-million people. Take a big clubhouse. We’ve had a continuous millionaire explosion in America, commencing with the Reagan years and continuing through this minute unabated.

It’s frankly easy to get into the Ordinary Millionaires’
Club. Heck, almost any business using my marketing can spin off an extra $100,000.00 to $200,000.00 a year - so, in 5 to 10 years, you’re there.

But that’s the Ordinary Millionaires’ Club. It is populated with people who are often ‘ankle-chained’ to ordinary, burdensome businesses or earning their money in soul-numbing careers.

I recently had dinner with a lawyer, a partner in a prestigious firm….an owner of several restaurants…..a doctor…..and an owner of a computer consulting and warranty service company - all millionaires, all earning high 6-figure incomes. All frustrated and mind-weary and complaining.

All droolingly envious of me and the info-marketers I described to them as I attempted to explain “what I do.”
One was envious of the 5-minute commute and freedom from long hours at the office. Another was envious of the no employees. Another was envious of the automatic, totally predictable, locked in monthly income.

A few years back, on a long flight, I explained the info-business to the CEO of a company you’d likely recognize, he’d built from ground up over 20 years, with a chain of outlets - he said, “If I could make $500,000.00 a year in the kind of business you describe, I’d burn mine to the ground tomorrow.”

Hey, even our own Bill Glazer, one of the most successful menswear retailers in the entire country with extraordinarily profitable stores, a life in that business, and already a millionaire from it, went absolutely ga-ga over info-marketing….and couldn’t wait to shut down his last store in favor of giving all attention to his two info-marketing businesses.

Believe me; everybody in the Ordinary Millionaires’ Club who grasps what we’re about is then chomping at the bit to move up to my Most Unusual Millionaires’ Society In The World!

I promise you - you can come on in, right now.

Well, you’re invited and to find out all the details simply click onto the link below:

http://www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com/

Consider possibilities like these:

She went from about $300,000.00 in income in 2005 to over $1-Million in 2006….working from her ‘home office’ on the beach….with only ‘virtual’ employees.

He bought his 3rd home, divides his time between the three….beams himself into seminars via video conferencing, does a few webinars a month….earns millions from his growing info-business.

He went from traveling almost 100 days a year speaking and consulting to creating a $2-million a year coaching business and staying home, to enjoy harbor sunsets and coach his kids’ team.

He’s a professional who - after just 2 years - was able to replace the income he was earning from his practice (working 40 hour weeks) times 4…..with an info-marketing business run for him by one staff person, requiring his time only one day a week.

She turned a hobby into a newsletter, web site and catalog business providing over $200,000.00 in yearly income….while a stay-at-home Mom raising three kids…..with everything on auto-pilot: she never handles a product, never mails a letter…even her bank deposits are done automatically.

He “packaged up” what he was doing in his small, local business and sold it as a ’system’ to others in his industry - and went from launch to over $3-million his first year.

Need I go on? I can!!

To cite hundreds and hundreds of people just like these folks, who are now living A Truly Exceptional Life Of Their Choosing thanks to the info-marketing opportunities that I’ve introduced them to. These are all real people - and you’ll meet most of them at the Info-SUMMIT. And that is THE place to introduce yourself to these very same opportunities. The ONLY place… The Info-SUMMIT.

This may interest you. From just 34 info-marketers who belong to my Platinum/Private Client Group, I am personally paid just shy of One Million Dollars a year - in exchange for hosting three group meetings, a consulting day with each, and 8 brief private phone calls.

Most have been with me for 3 to 10 years. Others stayed on a waiting list for years to get in. A few even bid above the required fee. These are not beginners. They are experienced, successful info-marketers who keep coming back for more. But they WERE BEGINNERS once!

Now they own and live the most enviable of lifestyles.
They own nice homes plus vacation homes, a couple own planes, they take luxury vacations, spend time with their families, run their businesses from home and remote locations, have the utmost freedom and security. And you will NOT catch any of them missing an Info-SUMMIT! Not on your life!

If they won’t, you shouldn’t.

I tell them the same thing I tell you - you can NOT afford to miss this once-a-year Info-SUMMIT. If you want to read about all the details click onto the link below:

http://www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com/

WARNING - WARNING - WARNING

WARNING: Yes, you could easily be locked out. This Info-SUMMIT was 90% sold out before I ever wrote this email!!!! — from returning alumni, word-of-mouth, people jumping the gun and insisting on registering long before we even set its date.

Hate to see you locked out for a whole year. So, I’ll put $500.00 CASH in your pocket for acting decisively and immediately. Register no later than June 30th, and deduct $500.00 from your total fees. (Fool around until July 1st and you LOSE THE $500.00. And you might very well lose the opportunity to come altogether.)

http://www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,

Dan Kennedy

PS: I will even guarantee that your trip to the Info-SUMMIT proves to be one of the most fruitful trips of your entire life: if, at ANY time during the three days of the Info-SUMMIT, you honestly believe you’ve made a mistake and that you don’t belong here or that I somehow misled you or you are otherwise disappointed, you need only say so to receive a full 100% fee refund PLUS UP TO $750.00 toward your documented travel and lodging expenses.

PPS: This year, the entire day before the Info-SUMMIT, Bill Glazer will be conducting an ALL-NEW “Accelerated A-Z Blueprints Seminar” absolutely ideal for anybody new to info-marketing.

His previous “A-Z Blueprint” is available at the Glazer-KennedyWebstore.com in edited home study course, and you should have it. But this year’s new A-Z Blueprint is really Blueprints …plural - because Bill is going to take you through dozens of different step-by-step business models, different ways to enter and develop an info-biz, each one fully demonstrated with real case histories and proliferate examples of ads, sales letters, websites, info-products, etc.

If you’re an experienced info-marketer, you can use this full day with Bill to review the fundamentals and to look into the newest ‘blueprints’….and as additional education for your staff. Included are BLUEPRINTS FOR….

1: BASIC OR ‘CLASSIC’ INFO-BUSINESSES built on the original JPDK blueprint - like Bill’s BGS Marketing (bgsmarketing.com).

2: NEWSLETTER BUSINESSES: how to build the subscriber base, create continuous income, fuel other opportunities with one or more newsletters. Here, you’ll see an insider’s, behind-the-scenes analysis of the Glazer-Kennedy business, past, present and future.

3: TELE-SEMINARS AND TELE-COACHING: exactly how to get and keep people in monthly tele-delivery programs priced from
$97 to $497 and up per month - so you can sit anywhere with your cell phone and make money! Glazer-Kennedy operates two such programs, so Bill will share some of our actual statistics as well as the unseen factors that make these programs successful.

4: COACHING / MASTERMIND GROUPS: Bill now runs three groups himself, producing $1,620,000.00 a year in revenue for 27 days’ work (and his waiting list tops 110). Gee, that’s $60,000.00 a day. I’ve been operating my groups for
9 years. And we now have Certified No B.S. Business Advisors running local groups, providing them with 6-figure incomes. We know what it takes to structure, sell, grow and sustain this kind of business better than anybody I’ve ever seen! And you can have them as a natural step in ascension of customers or directly market a group program ‘cold’ to a target market; you can operate locally, nationally or globally.

5: PRODUCTS: not just the info-product(s) you might sell to acquire customers but a COMPLETE BACK-END BUSINESS with multiple info-products at different price points; your own products and others’; your own catalog and web store; earning affiliate commissions from companies like Nightingale-Conant, amazon.com and, of course, Glazer-Kennedy*. How to build your info-products business as a stand-alone business with equity value. You’ll get a behind-scenes look at the Glazer-Kennedy products businesses.*In 2006, Glazer-Kennedy paid out over $1,200,000.00 in affiliate commissions.

6: NEWEST BLUEPRINT: ONLINE INFORMATION DELIVERY: how to build, sell and deliver paid online content and satisfy customers doing it. NO ‘hard’ product, no offline fulfillment! Look at an actual example.

7: NEWEST BLUEPRINT: MEMBERSHIP / ‘SOCIAL COMMUNITY’
SITES: the power of MySpace applied in business, niche or subculture settings. You’ll discover who’s doing the most with this…see behind-scenes at Glazer-Kennedy’s foray into this promising arena.

8: NEWEST BLUEPRINT: AREA EXCLUSIVE PROGRAMS. As you probably know, I’ve done an enormous amount of work with these, with about a dozen clients over the past couple years. Bill and I did our own - with local Chapters and Certified No B.S. Business Advisors in 84 locations, and more to come. Many info-marketers are adding this to their businesses, like Lt. X, Dr. Ben Altadonna, Ed O’Keefe and Denis Tubbergen…. others have created incomes of $1-million, $2-million a year and up from scratch with such programs, like Scott Tucker, Rob Minton, and Mike Miget.

9: NEWEST BLUEPRINT: ADVANCED ‘HERD’-BUILDING STRATEGIES:
How to get more value from your lists, offline and online.

IMPORTANT EXTRA TAKE-HOME VALUE!!!! - You will leave Blueprints Day with ACTUAL WRITTEN & DIAGRAMMED BLUEPRINTS for every info-business discussed…plus a GIANT TOOLBOX of examples from businesses using each blueprint.

This TAKE-HOME PACKAGE is itself worth more than the price of admission. And it is all completely UP-DATED EXCLUSIVELY FOR THIS YEAR’S INFO-SUMMIT with many brand new examples and four completely new blueprints. This is an indispensable resource available only to 2007 Blueprint attendees.

Note: Info-SUMMIT registration and attendance is NOT required to attend the A-to-Z Blueprints Day.

For you, this is the ultimate “crash course,” to get totally and completely up to speed BEFORE you walk through those golden doors to the Summit.

Once again…to get all the details all you have to do is click onto the link below:

http://www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

Dial in the Tone
by Tony Jeary

One of the primary tenets of any successful presentation (a presentation is defined as any time you talk to one or more people) design is the establishment of “tone.”

When it comes to presentations, the term tone refers to much more than merely an individual’s “tone of voice.” The tone of a presentation is really about audience perception. The simple truth is that your success or failure at anything – whether ordering a hamburger in a restaurant or speaking to a 5,000 person assembly – is largely contingent upon how you are received by the person or persons you are speaking to.

Tone then, is really all about the way an audience is affected by (and therefore perceives) the sum of everything you do; from the way you speak, your gestures and the subject matter, to the way you dress.

A presentation’s tone is contingent upon the many details, large and small, that collectively contributes to an overall impression: Was the subject matter enjoyable and useful? Was the presenter inviting? Did participants feel welcome? These are all questions of tone, and understanding how tone works and how to set the tone you want (need) is extremely important.

Any time a situation requires audience buy-in or a response of some kind – regardless of whether your audience is one or 1,000 – your best hope for communication lies in your ability to tailor the tone of the presentation to that specific audience. In my book, Inspire Any Audience, I spend a great deal of time going over the ins and outs of setting appropriate tone for a given situation. Different audiences and topics require different tones in order to be successful.

For example, the success of a presentation for a charity fund-raiser to a local high school group hinges on a tone that is most likely different than the one you would establish for a marketing presentation to a group of bank CEOs.

As complicated as some like to make the issue of establishing tone, when it’s all said and done, it all comes down to one simple, golden rule:

It is a recognized fact that people dread attending most presentations almost as much as they dread giving them. Why? Because presentations have a reputation for being boring.

Let’s face it; for most of us, our entire education has been “administered” to us in one form of a lecture or other. The lecture format for relaying information though now considered outdated by many education and training professionals – has been the tried and true method for generations. The good news is that while few people enjoy being lectured, most everyone enjoys a lively conversation. The trick is in creating a conversational tone with even large groups, a feat that is ideally accomplished within the first two or three minutes of a presentation. In an attempt to make this easier to accomplish for the readers of my book, I have condensed from years of study and experience a listing of the 10 key tips for appearing conversational with even the largest groups. They are:

• Try to talk with, not at your audience
• Use conversational language and avoid large, multi-syllable words
• Ask questions immediately and listen to the answers
• Get the audience involved, even if it means having them stand and shake each other’s hands
• Place nothing between you and your audience – avoid lecterns, podiums and risers when possible
• Mingle with your audience – if possible, actually walk into the audience
• Use participant names whenever possible and encourage them to use yours
• Smile – it’s a natural conversation starter
• Use humor when and where you can
• Use personal anecdotes and stories – they give your audience something to relate to and make the presentation experiential

As simple as these tips may initially seem, they are very powerful. Consistently applied, they are guaranteed to not only improve your presentations, but also increase your confidence and comfort level in front of any room.

Preparation For Your Presentations
by Jim Rohn (Excerpted From the Jim Rohn 2001 Weekend Event)

Persistence in your presentations, this is one secret to success. After my first presentation, I got up and did it again. Even though I was scared to death, I did it again. And that second one wasn’t too good, but guess what. I did it again, and I did it again. And I worked up my courage, and I did it again. I committed to it, and I did it again. And finally, it got to be a little bit easier. I got a little more acquainted with the art of presenting. So have something good to say in your presentations. Preparation for your presentations, this is another key aspect. Here are some words to help you in preparation.

To prepare to have something good to say, keep a keen interest in life and people. Don’t let your senses go dull here. Guess what most people are trying to do - get THROUGH the day. Here is what I am asking this unusual audience to do - get FROM the day. Get from the day a clear picture of the drama of human life - some doing is right, some doing is wrong. Some gathering in; some throwing it away. Some building reputations; some letting it all slide.

Get from the day what is happening in politics. Read the newspapers. Read the magazines. Find out what’s going on. Get from the periodicals. Get from what’s happening. Get from your job. Get from your career. Get from the people around you. What is happening in the community? Get from all of that. The positive side, the negative side.

My parents used to say, “Attend everything.” Some things are so costly; they might be out of reach for a while. Andrea Bocelli came to Beverly Hills. Guess what the tickets cost? $2500.00 for a two-hour performance. That is pretty good pay. So some things might be out of reach, but whatever you can go to, get to. Save up the money and go, so that you will be more aware of what is going on around you.

Keep up that interest in people. Why do they do what they do? How come things are happening today that didn’t happen thirty years ago?

Now the next word is fascination. Be fascinated with life and people and drama that is live and in color every day. Cinemascope. Fascination goes a little bit beyond interest. Interested people want to know does it work. Fascinated people want to know how does it work.

Kids have this unique ability to learn several languages in a six, seven-year period, and the reason is because they are so fascinated. They are so interested. They are so curious. Kids have to know, and that is how the drama of their learning takes on such speed in a fairly short period of time is because of this unusual interest and fascination and curiosity. We’re walking on ants, and kids are studying them. They say, “Don’t walk on those ants. I’m studying them.” How come an ant can carry something bigger than they are? That is a good question. They must be unbelievably strong if they can carry something bigger than they are.

Here is something else I’ve learned. To be fascinated instead of frustrated. It is just a little trick to play. The next time you’re tempted to be frustrated, see if you can’t turn it into fascination. Instead of a frown, it puts a smile on your face. Now sometimes you look a little weird, but so be it. He says, “How can he smile?” I don’t know. He must be somebody different.

Babe Ruth - Home Run King - back in those days of baseball used to strike out and come back to the bench smiling. They used to say, “Babe, you just struck out. How can you smile?” “I’m just that much closer to my next home run. Just stick around. It won’t be long. One will be sailing over the fence.” So find things fascinating instead of frustrating. Just try it. I’ve learned how to do it. Now make this note. It doesn’t work every time. Nothing works every time, but every time you can get it to work, guess what? It will benefit your day. You’ll get more from it. You’ll be fascinated instead of frustrated.

Now I’ve also learned the ultimate. I’m fascinated by my own frustration. How come it doesn’t take me long to loose it on occasion? It must be from my father’s side. My mother was a gentle soul. Just find it all fascinating. I’ve talked to a lot of the Network Marketing companies over the years, and I give them that little clue. Somebody joins and you think they’re going to stay forever, and they leave right away. You have to say, “Isn’t that interesting?” And someone you thought would never make it, sure enough they become superstars. You have to say, “Isn’t that interesting?” You say, “I thought they’d stay forever, they don’t stay. Isn’t that interesting. I didn’t think they’d do anything, look what they’re doing. Isn’t that interesting?”

So that is a good phrase. Find it interesting. Find it fascinating. Wow, I never thought that would happen. I had another picture in mind. Wow! Was I ever wrong. And it’s good sometimes to be wrong on the positive side. I didn’t think it was going to work, and it worked. Say, “What if somebody doesn’t look at your business opportunity?” Say, “What if they do?” It doesn’t take much to turn the question around. Say, “What if they won’t join after they look?” “What if they do? What if they join and stay.” But I’ve got a better question, “What if they do stay?” “What if they quit after three months?” I have a better question, “What if they stay?”

So sometimes little tricks you can play to give yourself a different look because somebody could either stay or leave and wouldn’t it be better to assume that they would stay and then if they leave say, “Isn’t that interesting?” I have learned to do that with myself. “Wow! Look what I did. Isn’t that interesting? Wow! I thought I was going to behave better. Wow! I lost it. Isn’t that interesting? I thought for sure that wasn’t going to bother me. Sure enough. I thought I had a handle on this. Looks like I’ve got some work to do.” Find yourself fascinating and interesting as you journey through life. Give yourself a chance.

Now here is the next word that is very important if you want to be a good communicator, and that is sensitivity. Sensitive to someone’s drama and trouble and difficulty. As you contemplate your own, now you can be sensitive to someone else. And there is no better way to be helpful than to do your best to try and understand. Here is the old phrase we’ve heard it, let’s jot it down this time. “Learn to walk in someone’s shoes for a while. Try to understand where they are.” How come they’re in this dilemma? Maybe it’s something I don’t know. I don’t understand. How come this person is losing his temper when he should keep it? Who knows what might have happened the last three weeks. I don’t know. Let’s give somebody room by trying to understand.

Be sensitive to someone lashing out and being difficult at the same time. Hey! We can handle that. We don’t have to retaliate and fight back. Can’t we say, “Maybe there’s a good reason this person behaves in this way.” That is an easier way. Sensitivity. Trying to understand. Trying to comprehend the full drama of human experience. One of the greatest phrases in the Bible, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Guess what a peacemaker is? Someone that you hope is around when the conflict could be resolved. Someone who understands both sides and brings them together. Say, “I know you’ve got some animosity, but now that you’ve fought and that didn’t settle it… couldn’t we get together and reason this whole thing out.

So in times of conflict, we look for a peacemaker. And the peacemaker has to understand both sides of the issue. Say, “I understand your dilemma, and I can see where you’re coming from, and I can understand why you said what you said then you said what you said. But hey! Isn’t there a better way? Couldn’t we find a better way to settle it all?” And that is what we are looking for.

Parents have to learn to be peacemakers when there are two sides to an issue and maybe neither one is that far wrong. But to try to settle it, we have to understand both sides. We have to understand the feelings on both sides, and that kind of sensitivity gives us a wonderful opportunity to grow, so that we can communicate and our words will be meaningful. Then the test comes, and the drama comes and the time comes to step up and speak or to sit down and speak or to be quiet and speak or to be loud and speak. Whatever that might call for, we’ll be prepared if we do have a genuine understanding. So preparation in all areas of life is so vital to your success. Don’t be lazy in preparing; don’t be lazy in laying the groundwork that will make all of the difference in how your life turns out.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

Triple Your Income from the Customers You Already Have

by Michael Sexton

You probably don’t think of your customers as expenses. But if you add up all the money you spent to win their business, you will discover how costly they really are. To win them, you spent a lot of money on advertising, salespeople, a Website and other marketing initiatives too.

Customers are costly. In fact, many businesses report that it takes more than a year before a typical customer represents a profit, not an expense.

What is the solution? You could go on spending money to win more customers - and you should. But you need to do something else too:

You need to generate more income from the customers you already have.

Here are some proven strategies that can get that job done - whether you are a small startup or a major corporation.

* Strategy one: Build loyalty. In other words, get your customers to buy exclusively from you, not from your competitors. If you own a coffee bar, hand out little cards that entitle your customers to a free eleventh cup of coffee after they have bought 10. Or if you are a car dealer, offer attractive predetermined trade-in prices for the new vehicles you sell, provided that your customers turn them in on the next cars they buy from you.
* Strategy two: Offer volume discounts to encourage your customers to buy more. If you have a landscaping company, offer a year’s service to customers who prepay for the next ten months. That sounds like you are lowering your per-month price, and you are. But the point is, you are selling at volume and boosting your cash flow.
* Strategy three: Upsell your customers to more expensive products. Airlines do it when they encourage current economy-fare customers to upgrade to first-class tickets. You can do it too. If you own a health club, for example, upsell your customers to more expensive memberships that include exclusive classes, massages and a tempting array of bundled benefits.
* Strategy four: Expand your product line. If you build swimming pools, start selling water purification systems to your current customers too. Or if you operate a martial arts school, introduce new self-defense courses for the parents of the children who already come to your school.

Be imaginative. Tripling the dollars you earn from each customer is an achievable goal. Apply the strategies I outline above. Stick to them. You will soon discover that even incremental income growth from each of your current customers will quickly make your profits soar.
To learn more about increasing your profits with creative marketing, be sure to investigate The Marketing Mastery Program: www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

How To Keep Your Customers From Using The Competition

In your previous Success Marketing Strategy, I wrote about how important first impressions were to customer relations. Now, I’d like to turn our attention to what you can do to foster customer retention.

Later in the game the customer relations process evolves into follow-up and follow-through. How would you react if…

… you got a call from your car dealer service manager a week after having some repairs done just to make sure everything is okay? You got a call from your doctor the evening after treatment just to check up on you. You got a questionnaire in the mail from a restaurant you dined at soliciting your comments and suggestions.

Some business people tell me that’s looking for trouble. I disagree. I think it’s looking for rapport, loyalty, satisfaction and repeat business. If follow-up turns up a lot of dissatisfaction you need to make some changes. The dissatisfaction is there whether you discover it or not.

How would you react if you got a thank you note a few days after buying a new suit from a clothing store, you got a birthday card from your insurance agent, you got a free dinner gift certificate as a thank you from a hotel chain, you got a personalized luggage tag in the mail as a gift from your travel agent?

Recognition and appreciation can be very powerful and very inexpensive as a marketing strategy. It is true that comprehensive follow-up and follow-through may reveal some inadequacies in your business operation and that’s good if you use those discoveries as impetus for improvement.

Of course every business, no matter how well managed, will have to deal with dissatisfied even angry customers from time to time. Sometimes the customer is justified in his complaints other times he is not, but the handling of the dissatisfied customer can have far reaching impact on a business.

In your next Success Marketing Strategy, I want to talk with you about techniques that you should consider when dealing with the dissatisfied customer. Be on the lookout for my next email in just a couple of days.

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,

Dan Kennedy

Go To For More Information: www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

Looks DO Matter

In your last Success Marketing Strategy I wrote about the importance of environmental appearance is as it relates to first impressions. A related matter is the personal appearance of the people your customer’s will deal with.

It’s important to understand that most customer impressions are formed with non-verbal input not verbal. The appearance your people present, the image they offer will have much more impact than whatever they say.

In the training and consulting work that I do with doctor’s, for example, I find definite measurable differences in their practices related to the packaging. By packaging I mean the attire of the doctor and the staff and I do suggest certain, specific modes of dress to those people.

In my own business activities, I most often wear a dress shirt and tie and either a suit or sport coat. Usually when I lecture I wear a suit. I’ll be the first to tell you that I think the necktie is a stupid, useless invention. I’ve lived in cold climates and can tell you that it does nothing to keep you warm. For tall guys like me a necktie’s too short to hold up your drawers. I mean it does nothing.

But some years ago I sat across the desk from a bank vice president and had him actually say to me, “You can’t be president of a company your not even wearing a tie.” Sure that’s stupid but it happened and it brings up two interesting success principles.

One - for every ten that say it there are ten thousand who think it.

Two - would you rather be right or rich?

You see when we develop marketing and business strategies we can’t base our thinking on what should be, our thinking has to be based on what is. I think an important part of effective customer relations is a combination of all these preliminary impression factors. Your business has to clearly and immediately demonstrate that it lives up to its advertised promise. In the first impression stage courteous, competence and integrity has to be communicated.

Okay, now we’ve talked about first impressions as it relates to customer relations, but what can you do after the initial contact in order to foster customer retention?

Let’s talk about it in your next Success Marketing Strategy email in just a couple of days. Speak to you then!

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,

Dan Kennedy

To Get Yours Go To: www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

Growing Your Business One Customer at a Time

By: Liz Tahir

The People aspect of business is really what it is all about. Rule #1: Think of customers as individuals. Once we think that way, we realize our business is our customer, not our product or services. Putting all the focus on the merchandise in our store, or the services our corporation offers, leaves out the most important component: each individual customer.

Keeping those individual customers in mind, here are some easy, down-home steps-to-remember when you want to keep ’em coming back!

1. Remember, there is no way that the quality of customer service can exceed the quality of the people who provide it. Think you can get by paying the lowest wage, giving the fewest of benefits, doing the least training for your employees? It will show. Companies don’t help customers… people do.

2. Realize that your people will treat your customer the way they are treated. Employees take their cue from management. Do you greet your employees enthusiastically each day; are you polite in your dealings with them; do you try to accommodate their requests; do you listen to them when they speak? Consistent rude service is a reflection not as much on the employee as on management

3. Do you know who your customers are? If a regular customer came in to your facility, would you recognize them? Could you call them by name? All of us like to feel important; calling someone by name is a simple way to do it and lets them know you value them as customers. Recently I signed on with a new fitness center. I had been a member of another one for the past ten years, renewing my membership every 6 months when the notice arrived. I had been thinking about changing, joining the one nearer my home and with more state-of-the-art equipment. So when the renewal notice came, I didn’t renew. That was 8 months ago. Was I contacted by the fitness center and asked why I did not renew? Did anyone telephone me to find out why an established customer was no longer a member or to tell me they missed me? No and No. My guess is they don’t even know they lost a long-time customer, and apparently wouldn’t care.

4. Do your customers know who you are? If they see you, would they recognize you? Could they call you by name? A visible management is an asset. At the Piccadilly Cafeteria chain, the pictures of the manager and the assistant manager are posted on a wall at the food selection line and it is a policy that the manager’s office is placed only a few feet from the cashier’s stand at the end of that line, in full view of the customers, and with the door kept open. The manager is easily accessible and there is no doubt about “who’s in charge here.” You have only to beckon to get a manager at your table to talk with you.

5. Go the extra mile. Include a thank-you note in a customer’s package; send a birthday card; clip the article when you see their name or photo in print; write a congratulatory note when they get a promotion. There are all sorts of ways for you to keep in touch with your customers and bring them closer to you.

6. Are your customers greeted when they walk in the door or at least within 30-40 seconds upon entering? Is it possible they could come in, look around, and go out without ever having their presence acknowledged? It is ironic it took a discount merchant known for price, not service, to teach the retail world the importance of greeting customers at the door. Could it be that’s because Sam Walton knew this simple but important gesture is a matter of respect, of saying “we appreciate your coming in,” having nothing to do with the price of merchandise?

7. Give customers the benefit of the doubt. Proving to him why he’s wrong and you’re right isn’t worth losing a customer over. You will never win an argument with a customer, and you should never, ever put a customer in that position.

8. If a customer makes a request for something special, do everything you can to say “Yes.” The fact that a customer cared enough to ask is all you need to know in trying to accommodate her. It may be an exception from your policy, but (if it isn’t illegal) try to do it. Remember you are just making one exception for one customer, not making new policy. Mr. Marshall Field was right-on in his famous statement: “Give the lady what she wants.

9. Are your associates properly trained in how to handle a customer complaint or an irate person? Give them guidelines for what to say and do in every conceivable case. People on the frontline of a situation play the most critical role in your customer’s experience. Make sure they know what to do and say to make that customer’s experience a positive, pleasant one.

10. Want to know what your customers think of your company? Ask them! Compose a “How’re We Doing?” card and leave it at the exit or register stand, or include it in their next statement. Keep it short and simple. Ask things like: what it is they like; what they don’t like; what they would change; what you could do better; about their latest experience there, etc. To ensure the customer sends it in: have it pre-stamped. And if the customer has given their name and address, be sure to acknowledge receipt of the card.

Remember that the big money isn’t as much in winning customers as in keeping customers. Each individual customer’s perception of your company will determine how well you do this.

About the Author:

Liz Tahir is an international marketing consultant, speaker, and seminar leader, whose mission is to help companies be more effective and profitable.
Get More Information Go To: www.onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com

Relationships Are Everything
By: Brian Tracy

Your Foundation for Success
Relationship Selling is the core of all modern selling strategies. Your ability to develop and maintain long-term customer relationships is the foundation for your success as a salesperson and your success in business. Relationship selling requires a clear understanding of the dynamics of the selling process as they are experienced by your customer.

Propose a Business Marriage
For your customer, a buying decision usually means a decision to enter into a long-term relationship with you and your company. It is very much like a “business marriage.” Before the customer decides to buy, he can take you or leave you. He doesn’t need you or your company. He has a variety of options and choices open to him, including not buying anything at all. But when your customer makes a decision to buy from you and gives you money for the product or service you are selling, he becomes dependent on you. And since he has probably had bad buying experiences in the past, he is very uneasy and uncertain about getting into this kind of dependency relationship.

Fulfill Your Promises
What if you let the customer down? What if your product does not work as you promised? What if you don’t service it and support it as you promised? What if it breaks down and he can’t get it replaced? What if the product or service is completely inappropriate for his needs? These are real dilemmas that go through the mind of every customer when it comes time to make the critical buying decision.

Focus on the Relationship
Because of the complexity of most products and services today, especially high-tech products, the relationship is actually more important than the product. The customer doesn’t know the ingredients or components of your product, or how your company functions, or how he will be treated after he has given you his money, but he can make an assessment about you and about the relationship that has developed between the two of you over the course of the selling process. So in reality, the customer’s decision is based on the fact that he has come to trust you and believe in what you say. :p

Build a Solid Trust Bond
In many cases, the quality of your relationship with the customer is the competitive advantage that enables you to edge out others who may have similar products and services. The quality of the trust bond that exists between you and your customers can be so strong that no other competitor can get between you.

Keep Your Customers for Life
The single biggest mistake that causes salespeople to lose customers is taking those customers for granted. This is a form of “customer entropy.” It is when the salesperson relaxes his efforts and begins to ignore the customer. Almost 70 percent of customers who walked away from their existing suppliers later replied that they made the change primarily because of a lack of attention from the company.

Once you have invested the time and made the efforts necessary to build a high-quality, trust-based relationship with your customer, you must maintain that relationship for the life of your business. You must never take it for granted.

Action Exercises
First, focus on building a high quality relationship with each customer by treating your customer so well that he comes back, buys again and refers you to his friends.

Second, pay attention to your existing customers. Tell them you appreciate them. Look for ways to thank them and encourage them to come back and do business with you again.

For More Information Go To: www:onlineofflineinformationmarketing.com