So what’s going wrong?

Well, the short answer is… Somebody else’s rules.

“You have to do it this way”, “you can’t do that”, “you must adhere to this way of working”… blah, blah, blah! …and funnily enough, rules are not the greatest source of motivation!! – so it makes sense that the business owner can easily feel stifled by such things.

Unfortunately, business is stuffed full of badly thought out conventions and rules. Some have purpose but sadly many do not. Let’s take a few examples, starting with an easy one…

Any decent business must have a nice office or premises

What? …Exactly who came up with this nonsense!!!???

So, you’ve just started in business and immediately you are dragged down by concrete boots of rent/mortgage, heating, lighting, general upkeep …the list goes on. But here’s the thing, does a business owner who takes this plunge ever wonder do they ACTUALLY NEED that office?

What’s wrong with the spare bedroom at home?

No spare bedroom? …well how about the spare rooms at your friends or family?

No friends? …well how about your kitchen table?

None of the above need cost you a penny and straight away all of your profits are just that… PROFIT! Rather than rent or money for bills!

There is nothing more demotivating than winning a sale only for those funds to immediately go up in smoke on unnecessary expenses.

The customer is always right

Nothing in life is “always” true, and this statement about the customer is an obvious example of this! Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying customer service has no place – in fact, I’m saying the exact opposite.

Pandering to the ‘problem customers’ and trying to uphold this ‘always right’ mentality can cause you all manner of hassles. Time, effort and money can be quickly wasted as you try to resolve their unreasonable demands…

The whole time that is happening you are not spending time with those customers who are the lifeblood of your business.

Every time you give a problem customer an over inflated sense of self-importance something else in your business suffers… other good customers have to wait, your family has to wait because you had to work late, your profits are reduced by endless expense and refunds…

But hold on – Who’s business is this?

Did you set out to create a business which gave you and those close to you a better life? …or did you do it to become punch-drunk from endless crap from moronic customers?

The answer to this is simple and again (for some) breaks another one of those rules: FIRE THE PROBLEM CUSTOMER!

I have a good friend who regularly ‘fires clients’ and his business increases as a consequence. He has more time, more money, more energy for those things which are important like good customers, family and friends.

So, yes, the customer is always right when you want to make them feel good about doing business with you… BUT… it is only the GOOD customers who should enjoy this luxury… FIRE THE REST!

And now for my favourite…

You must have a business plan and this is how it must be done

Yes, having goals and direction are a marvellous thing… however, ironically, most business plans don’t place enough focus on the idea of goals and direction!

Looking at a typical template, say one given to you by the bank or enterprise agency, and the goals and direction part (aka the Vision / Mission Statement) is often the SMALLEST piece of the template! But hold on, surely all the planning material that follows that initial section is BASED on the goals described…

That’s like quickly deciding the end point of a journey and then spending lots of time and effort planning, only to find when you get there it wasn’t where you REALLY wanted to go in the first place!

Personally, I believe it is this lack of focus on goals and direction which means many business plans NEVER get read! Again ironic, you spent ages creating the map and then once complete you never looked at it!!!

Now that’s just three of many nonsense rules and conventions which are forced on us as businesspeople. There are many more – so feel free to add your own in the comments section below.

For now, everytime you feel that you SHOULD or MUST do something then take a second and ask yourself “Does this actually benefit me? What would happen if I didn’t do this?” – and then act accordingly.

Because always remember…

The greatest advances in any area of life have often been found when people are willing to ‘break the rules’ and step out of the confines of the perceived box (of rules).

So go on, tell me your frustrations below…

What rules are attempting to crush your success? …what have you done about them? …what advice can you offer others when wishing to curb the convention and boost success?

Want to hear more?

Sign-up for blog updates now! …lots of great FREE content coming soon!

But now it’s time to just make this a full blown blog with ongoing business stuff that provokes, inspires and demands attention… So the blog has been rebooted!

I have removed certain posts (in readiness for something cool in the coming weeks) and have lined up new content instead. So watch this space and enjoy!!!

Anyway, let’s get to the point…

It’s anonymous and will take 60-90secs …and then you can get back to rocking-and-rolling in your business.

Click here and tell me what you want

Over the last few weeks I’ve been releasing some videos on my blog and getting great feedback via email, facebook, etc (if you haven’t seen the videos yet, just scroll down now) – Anyway, to ensure we keep giving you the best stuff… I need your help.

Take the 90sec survey now

To put it another way: I want to know what you want to know! …if that makes sense!

Every business needs to know what the customer wants – and we’re no different. So we will use your answers to make sure we give you exactly what you want and/or need. Oh, and when you complete the 90sec survey we’ll say “thanks for your time” in a suitable way too!

So thanks in advance!

PS – Yes, if you didn’t pick up the hint, there is something at the end of the 90secs for you! So go ahead and click through now – Help me to help you!

As of today the new ENHANCE website is live, and our new web marketing service, RAPIDcreation™ is rocking-n-rolling. Like I said, a great week!

Check out www.enhance.biz for the new ENHANCE site

Check out www.enhance.biz/rapidcreation for the new RAPIDcreation™ service

Enjoy!

We are not a classic web design company and until recently did not offer this service…

BUT…

We are exactly the right web design company for you! Let me explain why…

If you have ever wanted to get online or update the design of your current website then you will know it can be a time-consuming, wallet-shredding and even soul-destroying experience!

You then have the pain of ongoing updates where you are locked into a ‘relationship’ with a money-grabbing designer. And even then, you have the most important question still to consider…

“It looks pretty but does it sell?!”

REALITY CHECK: Websites are an important part of your sales and marketing activities, i.e. they are supposed to make sales happen!

…so let’s be frank, typical web-designers are (as you would expect) design focused, which means they are likely NOT sales focused.

So wouldn’t it be great to have a company who delivers great looking sites that are based on tried-and-tested powerful web marketing strategies …AND are up and running in days!

We’re talking about great design and effective marketing WITHOUT the price tag

In the past few months some of our customers (and even suppliers!) have been practically frothing at the mouth pleading to know how and where we get our websites designed. As you can imagine, they were astonished to discover it was an ‘inside job’!

Once that little secret had leaked out we were awash with enquiries for web advice and requests for sites. In just one day we received FIVE unsolicited requests for help! …not bad for a company who is renowned for sales and marketing …and not web design!!

So consider this a heads-up for a forthcoming new service from ENHANCE…

In the near future we’ll let you know the details, but in the mean time if you want to be first inline, then call 0131 208 5333.

There comes a time, perhaps even on a regular basis, that a small business owner gets stumped when thinking about what to do.

• “Are we still offering what customers want?”
  
• “Should I increase our product offerings?”
• “Do we need to lower our prices?” (<–Daft question! …see upcoming give-away)
• “Do they like what we do?”

…and so on.

But here’s the thing…

The answers you need are in your customer’s head

So just ask!

A great small business is one that understands you need to listen to your customers, because they have all the answers you need…

As I write this, here at ENHANCE we are busy conducting a quick survey of our customers who enrolled on our free Recession Buster Series. The idea of that mini-course was to provide killer business strategies to help small business growth in a recession.

We want to know – Is it working? …Have we provided the right business material? Are these small business marketing strategies liked by our members? Do people prefer videos, MP3′s or transcripts? (we’d given all three!) …and so on.

Their answers have immediately helped improve the product

We’re not even into day 3 of collecting the results and already it is easy to see what we need to do to make what we offer even better.

There are comments I never expected – even more intriguingly, some of the areas people are highlighting as ‘favourite content’ I would never have guessed!

To put it simply – Their answers are solid gold for me and ENHANCE.

…So, how long did this take to do?

From start to finish the survey took only 15mins to create

Seriously. Having decided to do the survey, within 15mins not only was the survey created but every customer of the Recession Buster Series had been informed.

(in fact, we got the first response just 10mins after that!)

So if you want to discover what your customer is thinking, to find out if you are marketing a small business in a way that gets results, then you need to do this…

Seven quick steps to survey success

Okay, here’s a quick few pointers to get you going. Quick, simple and easy…

1. Have a mailing list of clients – if you’ve been using something like Aweber (click HERE for details), then you’ll have this. If not, use your customer database and link it to your email software. (Don’t know how? …well find a techie who does!)
2. Decide your questions – What do you REALLY want to know from your customers? I suggest you maintain a focus for your survey. For example, we didn’t ask all of our clients about every aspect of ENHANCE. We only asked those who had been on Recession Buster Series what they thought of that particular free mini business course.
3. Create questions which get the best quality of answer – This is not a ‘happy clapping’ exercise where you force customers to give positive feedback because you only asked positive-framed questions! We’re talking about getting USABLE data that allows you to improve your business. The website I am about to suggest allows you to have multiple answers, choices, scales, comments, etc …you name it, it has the flexibility to collect the information you need.
4. Create survey – We recently used Survey Monkey (click HERE for details) because it was quick and easy and FREE! You can also use something like ‘ASK‘ which has more options for how to control and place your survey (i.e. do you want to have it pop-up on your site after a certain activity, like a sale). I’ve arranged a $1 trial if you want to check it out HERE. Whatever way you choose, just follow instructions and in no time you’ll have your survey created
5. Add a thank-you – If your customers are going to go to the trouble of giving you information then least you can do is say thank you! It could be a special discount coupon, a free report, a 2-for-1 offer. There’s actually some sense in letting your customer know about the thank-you gift beforehand – for example: “Every customer who takes part in the survey gets a special report on XYZ, as our way of saying thank you”
6. Publish and promote your survey – Having compiled the questions, created an online introduction for your survey (see Survey Monkey and Ask for details), simply email your customers with a short email explaining the survey.
7. Analyse your results and make the changes – Needless to say, it will be a pointless exercise if having discovered all that great info you then do not bother to implement it!!

That’s it – the only additional notes I would add are:

• Don’t over do it! Seven or eight questions is enough. Any more and customers will be annoyed by the survey… which of course would be a crazy situation!!
• Consider emailing your customers a reminder if at first you don’t get enough responses. Any form of survey is always better when you have a good number of responses to consider. If you have only a few responses your data will likely not be representative of all your customers.

So…

Next time you are wondering about the best way to do something or how to fine tune your small business marketing strategies or how to keep the customers coming back for more,  just remember…

YOUR CUSTOMER HAS ALL THE ANSWERS YOU NEED!!!

One of the best small business marketing strategies is simply to educate your customers. That really is the key to marketing a small business.

Think of it like this – No matter what the size of company, whether a big or small business, sales can be described as…

The successful fulfilment of a customer’s needs

However it is often the case that the customer is not always aware of what they need and therefore require some form of education. Putting it simply, if they don’t know then they can’t buy. Or thinking about it form the customer’s perspective, you could even say it is a disservice to the customer if you do not make them aware of all the possibilities and opportunities.

So, in simple terms:

The more they know, the more likely they will buy

For me that is the golden rule of small business marketing. Face it, you are not a Coca-cola or Microsoft… you don’t have the marketing millions to throw around or an existing market presence that makes people go “I’ll buy whatever you’ve got!”

So it’s important we stay realistic – We’re not talking big business marketing and strategy, we’re talking small business marketing strategy and that means taking things back to basic principles.

You need to make your prospective customers aware of:

• What you’ve got
• Why they want it
• How they can get it

…and that’s it, that’s the key to small business growth.

First… How to ‘blow it’!

All too often small business owners blow this completely by trying to sell the whole thing in one go. In other words they reduce all of their sales potential to one sales pitch…

…which means it comes down to one opportunity for that much wanted ‘yes’.

And sadly, this often leads to a ‘no’ instead.

There is another way – In my business development course, Blueprint for business™, I call it the ‘five step marketing strategy’ and when used correctly it is a liquid gold small business marketing strategy.

Why five steps?

Well, statistics have shown that a sales and marketing strategy or approach which holds five or six steps is 80% more likely to achieve success than one which does not.

For instance, did you realise that a mail-shot campaign is likely to achieve a less than 1% success rate if left without follow-up?

More interestingly, just by adding one extra step of a follow-up phone call to that mail-shot you can get four or fives time the success. Now that’s just with one extra step… so imagine what five steps will do for any small business owner… including you!

The idea is a simple one, instead of presenting your information as one great epic, you offer your prospective customer a mini-series of sales and marketing episodes that gradually build your overall message.

Essentially step one sells step two, step two sells step three, and so on, until the customer buys.

Each step can be a different form of information from a letter to a postcard, email to a phone call, or advert to a meeting. You may even wish to kick-start this small business marketing strategy with a spin on the classic phone-mail-phone beginning, whereby you…

• Phone the company to confirm the details of the relevant contact such as name (spelling and pronunciation), email or postal address and phone number (think of this as a kind of step zero)
• Mail a letter or email describing your business and offering (step one)
• Phone again and discuss the contents of the letter (step two)

You can then follow-up with an email or meeting and in turn progress the sale.

And, by the way, you don’t have to wait to the fifth episode before you close the sale as each episode gives you that opportunity. The key is to make sure the close happens when the customer wants it to happen…

…but hey, you now have five opportunities! If the customer is eager to buy then let them!

Make life easier!

Another useful pointer for the five step marketing strategy is how it is so much easier for your small business to manage. It makes marketing a small business a piece of cake.

By definition, having a small business means you don’t have lots of people running around doing things for you… well, that’s okay because the workload has now been spread across five steps. Add a touch of system and process and you could automate the whole thing.

Better still, rather than having a whole sales pitch fail and being at a loss as to why, with this small business marketing strategy you’ll know exactly what didn’t work.

All you need do is monitor your results for each step. If, for example, step 2 is not converting as well as you would hope, then just change that one step. Easy!

Do this right and you will enjoy explosive small business growth!

Obviously there’s a lot more to discuss, but for the moment just realising that you can spread your effort and in turn gain greater reward is a major plus for any small business owner who wants to excel with their small business marketing.

It’s about being small

Yes, I’ve laboured the whole small business thing…

…but that’s the point, you are a small business.

So drop the big money tactics of throwing money at advertising and hoping people will miraculously notice your small business and inexplicably want to buy what you got.

This is one time where thinking small will make big things happen!

When it comes to small business marketing strategy, thinking as a small business will ALWAYS get you better results.

So back to basics, think as a small business, build a relationship with your customer, educate them…

…and then you will supply them.

Any small business marketing strategy which does not include some method for getting customers to come back is …FLAWED!

Quite simply, you are leaving money on the table which could so easily be yours and getting that money may not cost you much at all.

Do you realise…

A sale from a returning customer is 6 times more profitable than a new sale?!

So why is that? – well, consider how much it costs you in time and effort to get a new customer:

• Purchase of customer lists or market research
• Phone calls, mailers, letters, emails, …
• Numerous meetings and the associated expenses like travel, hotels, food, …
• In fact every aspect of the ‘new sales’ process will cost you money

But of course, when it comes to the second sale from that customer you can avoid all of this time, expense and effort …because they are already your customer!

So the obvious question is ‘How?’

‘How do you get the customer to return?’ – and the obvious answer is ‘Just ask them’! …marketing a small business has never been easier!

Your customers’ justification in returning to your small business is in your current AND prior actions. When your business acts in an appropriate way it is very easy for the customer to return when asked – better still, do everything right and the customer may well return on their own accord.

Now some people may look upon the idea of returning customers and note that their small business is not really geared up for repeat business. Perhaps they have a kind of one-off service or a small product/service offering.

However, neither are excuses for missing out on business opportunity and increased profits…

So, rethink your small business marketing strategy, change the way you offer your services and enjoy the assured results.

There is a great saying about ‘low hanging fruit’ being easy to pick – return custom is the low hanging fruit for your small business.

As I discuss in my small business growth course, Blueprint for business™, getting the customer to come back is really quite easy…

Customer perception

Does the customer enjoy doing business with you? Do they feel happy, confident and loyal?

Your customers will return when they have good feelings regarding your company, such good feelings can be anything from friendliness to trust and loyalty. Being able to produce such feelings is essential to your success.

Customer education

Is the customer aware of why they want to come back to your business?

Be proactive! Go out of your way to educate the customer as to all the reasons why they want to return to your business. An informed customer is far more likely to buy again.

Customer attention

Does the customer REMEMBER you exist?

It is very common for small businesses to lose customers simply because the customer has forgotten you exist. Business and life in general is fast-paced for almost everyone, your customers included, but a simple reminder may be all it takes for your customer to remember your business when it counts.

So…

Clearly this is just tip-of-the-iceberg stuff and there’ s a whole lot more to talk about.

But if this is all you consider then just remember…

Whatever approach you use when marketing your small business, just make sure you chase repeat business with the same enthusiasm as new business. In fact, why not be even more enthusiastic because the statistics are on your side… you WILL profit from your efforts!

Traditional, and hence flawed, sales is often about…

• How great you are
• How fabulous your company is
• How wonderful your products are
• How much better you are than your competitors

In other words…

• ‘Me, me, me and me’

Ordinarily each statement in isolation is not particularly harmful, however when such statements are presented as a whole it tends to suggest that the sale has completely the wrong focus.

The focus needs to be on the customer not the seller

To quote the lyrics of a song from British group, The Jam, which is it…

“The public wants what the public gets”

or

“The public gets what the public wants”

It is not what you can say to a potential customer that necessarily matters, it is what they can tell you and how you can in turn make them feel. In other words you need to think in reverse, for when you change your focus a whole new world opens up to you.

So…

Forget the sales patter and standard descriptions of your products, instead discover what makes your customer tick and get inside their mind.

Your mission is to help them buy from you, not sell them something – this is a subtle yet profound difference …and is at that heart of successful small business marketing strategy and thinking.