Can Powers By Design Help You Earn More This Year?
Can Powers By Design Help You Earn More This Year?
Yes, We Can…
“This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.” - President-elect Barack Obama, Nov. 4th, 2008
President-elect Obama said, “The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep…But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there…”
What does that mean for your business?
Democrat, Republican or Independent…it doesn’t matter. If you’re not stepping forward, simply put, you’re not moving. In order to survive these tough economic times - now, more than ever - it’s important to remind your customers you’re here.
Can you achieve greater profits this year? The answer is “Yes, you can,” but only with the right marketing firm. Contact us today and turn any doubts of growth into an affirmation of success.
Your Business Is Dying…Are You Doing Enough To Save It?
No one likes these words, “Your business is dying”, “you’re customers are disappearing”, “no one is buying”, “the market is bottoming out & spending is grinding to a halt”. Not one single business owner ever sets out to fail in their field. We all have high hopes, idealistic dreams, aspirations to make hundreds, thousands and even millions of dollars in our business. Yet not everyone will reach this goal.
Your business will die if you’re not willing to re-examine your marketing and advertising efforts in a downed economy. Simply halting them, while is the easiest way to “save money” maybe doing more damage long term.
Businesses who continue to build consumer confidence, generate and encouraging networking efforts to strengthen the relationships with their consumers, are the businesses who will prosper in this tough economic time.
There’s hundreds of low-cost, high return ways to yield success in customer retention. For the smaller business, I highly recommend joining (and being ACTIVE) at your local Chamber of Commerce. This is an excellent way to meet new contacts, strengthen your current ones and even get referrals to help you and others.
I was at a recent chamber event in my town where a women had said how disappointed she was in attending chamber events and didn’t know how “networking” would help her as her business was such a niche industry. Low and behold, I had a client of mine who I introduced her and the two hit it off. Neither maybe “direct” customers of each other per say but the meeting and collaboration of the two can possibly lead to that.. They both are ‘in the similar type of field’ and between them they may have leads for each other but would have never met if it weren’t for someone like me introducing them to each other.
Not only was it good karma but now the other person was so impressed with how I eagerly referred someone to her to collaborate on how to grown their businesses, she’s leaning towards sending work to me–it pays to have good karma! Not only that, but people will also learn that I’m a good referrer, eager to refer people to others. A networking matchmaker if you will.
The only cost to me, my time in attending a chamber event and networking. The return? Priceless in word of mouth how I helped two get introduced and possible leads to business down the road. All that because I attended a 1 hr “brown bag luncheon”.
Again….I highly recommend to anyone if they want to build their business, networking is the key. It can take seven to fourteen “touches” to get a possible lead into buying your services.
A touch can be as simple as a phone call to a prospect to see how you and them can help each other (like I did with the two people previously) or as personal as a nice handwritten card saying it was great seeing them at a recent event and you’d love the chance to know more about what their needs are in today’s marketplace. Business owners are more apt to meet with you when you’re into their needs and less about “selling them yourself”. I find that if I get a bigger response from a lead if I let them do the talking, ask them about themselves, their business, their needs…again, it falls to good karma and patience. It costs nothing but your time, and effort.
Hope these two suggestions help encourage you to do more to grown your business and expand the possibilities of some free ways to generate leads. Networking is key and those who aren’t doing the most to network on a weekly basis–will eventually find the decrease in business. Even if you don’t need “new” business, you should be contacting your current clients on a regular basis–keeping them aware you’re interested in their well being in these tough economic times.
Networking Tools Part 2
Okay so now you know, never leave without the business cards. I like to keep them in my right pocket (and put the ones I receive in my left pocket, so I don’t accidently give out someone else’s business card by mistake).
Must Haves on a Business Card:
(1) Your name, company name and title are of course essential. Its good to have these, often I see a business card without a title and its frustrating to try to remember what they do and you can’t always find that on a company website.
(2) Address, phone, fax are great…I also firmly believe in putting your email and url. I actually once got a business card that had someone’s name, company name…no title, no phone number, no email address or web address. Simply their name & company name. How the heck would someone follow up? Additional to the web address, make sure your website is up and running. I’ve received a number of cards from startup companies with either no website (yet) but the url is reserved…or worse, actually got my second website url from a business card that was taken down by a web designer for non-payment. Can you imagine how embarrassed they must be to have visitors type in their website to see they didn’t pay their bill.
(3) Name tags. Not everyone wears them but its a lot nicer to have a professionally printed one and not your handwriting on a white sticker on your shirt. Also, legibility is important. You don’t want people staring at your chest trying to read your name tag. I’ve had too, on a few occasions, ask someone because I couldn’t read the small print on their tag (shiny tags can be the worse offenders).
(4) The followup. Like I said before, contact those you met who you’d like to reconnect with. Invite them to see your office/company and it doesn’t hurt to ask to see theirs.
