|
Selling Your Services |
Seven Great Marketing & Sales Strategiesby Gregory P. Smith
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "The great thing in life is not where we stand, but what direction we are moving." No matter what business you work in, a "business as usual" mindset will insure your competitors are making more money than you are. If you don't stand out from the competition you may find yourself stood up by your customers. Now more than ever you have to focus, improve, and possibly even change what you do to attain, retain, and maintain customers. Strategy 1. Think big and audit your time. No matter the size of your business, place a mental image in your mind as if you are the largest and most successful person in your industry. How much time is consumed by routine office work someone else should be doing? Spend more time with more important tasks such as marketing strategies, improving customer relations, and implementing new strategies to expand your services. Strategy 2. Be different and stand out from the competition. Jordan Furniture sells more furniture per square foot than any other furniture store in the nation. They transformed their family-owned business into a multi-million dollar corporation by following a principle called "shoppertainment." To surprise employees and customers, Barry and Eliot Tatleman dressed up like the Lone Ranger and Tonto and rode horses in their parking lot. They built an IMax theater inside one store to entertain children while their parents shopped. When you drive around the back to pick up your furniture they provide you free hotdogs and wash your car windows. Ê Strategy 3. Build relationships with your customers. For each month that goes by, customers lose 10% of their buying power. Create a customer database and contact them on a regular basis. Mail them a postcard, birthday card, sales flyer, newsletter etc. to keep your name, phone number, and service on their mind. Strategy 4. Collect E-Mail Addresses. Get permission from your customers to use their E-mail address. Periodically send updates and notices to your client list.Ê As long as you have their permission and avoid overuse, E-mail can be a powerful and inexpensive marketing tool. Strategy 5. Hire top sales people. Successful businesses realize the quality of their sales staff is critical to sustaining their growth in the marketplace. A top salesperson can outsell an average one 4 to 1. Sales people must understand their strengths and have a well-defined plan to reach their potential. Many companies can provide you sales assessments to both identify top candidates and develop currently employed sales people. Strategy 6. Pay-per-click advertising. Many business owners are finding classified advertising is not an effective use of their marketing dollars. Others are finding pay-per-click advertising is an easier and cheaper way to reach a larger market. Pay-per-click will insure you receive top visibility on websites driving more customers to your door. Advertisers bid on keywords and the more popular the keyword, the more expensive each click is. Prices vary between ten cents to many dollars depending on the popularity of the word. The most popular pay-per-click advertisers are Google, Business.com, and Yahoo. [Editor's Note: One of the Yahoo pay-per-click products now allows you to attract customer inquiries generated from Internet searches made from within a 100-mile radius of your business location. This makes it ideal for sweeping contractors. You can get help with this idea from the WorldSweeper.com search engine marketing team.] Strategy 7. Use customer service commandments to create good habits. Bates Ace Hardware store located in Atlanta created "Twenty Customer Service Commandments" modeled after the Ritz-Carlton hotels outlining specific behaviors employees are to demonstrate when dealing with customers and fellow employees. For example, "Accompany a customer to the correct aisle instead of pointing to another area of the store." They print the commandments on a small card and employees carry it with them at work. Greg Smith's Free E-mail Newsletter: If you would like a free subscription to Greg's newsletter, just email the word 'Navigator' to navigator@chartcourse.com. Greg Smith is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and business performance consultant. He has written numerous books including his latest, Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High Turnover to High Retention. Greg has been featured on television programs such as Bloomberg News, PBS television, and in publications including Business Week, USA Today, Kiplinger's, President and CEO, and the Christian Science Monitor. He is the President and "Captain of the Ship" of a management-consulting firm, Chart Your Course International, located in Atlanta, Georgia. You may phone him at 770-860-9464. This story was written in April of 2005. |
 © 2005 - 2012
|
Parking Area Sweeping Contents
|