Does your business make the same amount of profit from each client?

The answer, obviously, is no.

Your customers are not created equal.

Give or take a few percentage points, 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customer base.

It is wise, therefore, to categorize your clients into five distinct categories. Use 1-5, or A-E (or some other rating system that you develop), with 1 or A being your best and most profitable clients and 5 or E being the clients with whom you spend a great deal of your time but from whom you make very little profit.

“Twenty percent of the customers account for 80 percent of the turnover; 20 percent of the components account for 80 percent of the cost and so forth.”

- Vilfredo Pareto, Pareto’s Law

After you have categorized all of your customers, I suggest that you “fire” the ones that make up the bottom of the list.

I know that this sounds like a bold thing to do, and maybe even a little bit crazy, but you will find that your business is more profitable in the end.

The easiest way to rid your business of the trouble­some “low-end” clients is to raise your prices.

Again, this sounds like a bold thing to do, but your better cus­tomers know that price isn’t everything. Your business should have the service and value to back up your prices.

A price increase should send your “low-end” cus­tomers to your competitors. Believe it or not, you will benefit from this.

These customers don’t care about the value that you offer and they take up a lot of your time.

These clients are not interested in anything but price.

Let them go!

Let them slow down your competitors and give them the headache of being busy for very little prof­it.

Meanwhile, you will be able to spend your valuable time working with the better customers on your list.

You already know that most of your profits come from your best clients. Therefore, focus on keeping only the better clients. Work to get all of them to the “number one” cate­gory by offering amazing value when they give you their business.

How many clients do you have in each category?

After you have read everything that you can about marketing (including these ideas), after you have traveled thousands of miles in your “personal automo­bile university” (listening to educational CDs and MP3′s in your car), and after you have studied all of the infor­mation that you can find everywhere else, then it is time for you to write your marketing plan.

Gather all of your experience, education, and advice and decide what you will do to grow your business.

Begin by trying and testing your marketing ideas.

Use small and safe tests.

Estimate how long that it might take for you to see the results of your efforts by creating a marketing calendar to help to guide you along the way.

This road map will help you to see how overlapping plans and campaigns affect each other. More importantly, use your marketing calendar to track your results. This will allow you to see clearly which efforts were profitable and which should be discontinued.

Learn to keep each marketing tactic that you under­take flexible.

You will quickly discover which efforts prove to be effective. You will want to use them again, expanding them into new geographic areas and markets.

Unfortunately, you also will find out which efforts proved to be bad ideas, ideas that did not create meas­urable profit. These marketing efforts should be elimi­nated. Don’t waste valuable time and effort trying to fix them. Stick with what works or try something new.

On your calendar, use highlighter pens in different colors to indicate how long the results of each campaign should take.

If you’re a more “digital” type of person, there are many good computer programs and online tools to help you to track your marketing efforts.  In fact, you might want to check out Fast Marketing Plan. There are many tools that will make it easy for you to compare visually how the actual results measure up to your pre-implemen­tation expectations. This information will help you to “fine-tune” your ongoing efforts.

How flexible are your marketing efforts?

Have you run newspapers and magazines ads? Are there any articles that have been written about you, about your business, or about your products and services?

People may be impressed and respond when these articles and ads run the first time, but how many of them are ever seen again by the public?

Running an ad can be very expensive, so you may not be able to run an ad for an extended period of time.

Articles written about your business that get printed in the media have a short shelf life. When the current issue of a publication that contains the article about you or your business is taken off the shelf, people won’t be reading your positive press anymore.

Repurpose, reuse and republish your marketing

But you can re-use and re-purpose these items in other marketing efforts of your own.

When ads for your business (or positive articles about your business) are printed in a newspaper or magazine, have them copied or reprinted at a local “quick print” shop. You now have the ability to use these reprints in a lot of marketing projects.  Here are some inexpensive ways to distribute your reprints:

• Scan and e-mail your ads to clients and prospects.
• Post your scans on your web site.
• Mail reprinted materials along with statements and invoices.
• Include reprints with your next direct mail effort.
• Have some high school students put reprints on parked cars or on the “community posting boards” at the local library or college.

As you are making your reprints, be sure to add the caption, “as seen in (Publication Name),” under the actual ad or article. This caption will give your new marketing effort added credibility.

“The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.” - William Gibson

Your advertisements can also be enlarged and displayed at your place of business. This will remind patrons about the offers in your print ads. Your advertisements may only run once in print, but they can live forever. You can reuse them for years.
The same technique can be used to extend the life of any positive articles that are written about your busi¬ness in newspapers, journals, and magazines. Another great idea is to take these reprinted articles and distribute them to any of your clients and/or prospects who you feel might have missed seeing them in the original publication.

“This is like deja vu all over again.”
- Yogi Berra

If you want to re-use or re-print an article, you may have to get permission from the author or original publisher and pay a small fee. Remember that it’s priceless when someone who isn’t connected with your business, writes positive comments about you or your business in the media. You can use these comments forever.

It is wise to collect all the advertisements that you run, all the positive articles that are written, and all the testimonials that you receive from satisfied customers.

Put these materials into a binder, and use it as a brag book. Use the material regularly in your marketing efforts, to build credibility and help people feel more confident about making a decision to do business with you.

Do you have old advertisements or positive press articles lying around that could be reprinted and used in your future marketing efforts?

Who Will Buy Your Professional Services?
By: Sandy Barris

Are you an engineer, IT consultant or a dentist? How about a business coach, facilities manager, project manager or any of the thousands of professional services wanted by millions of businesses?

Have you recently been downsized or layed off? Or, have you retired and are climbing the walls wanting to get back in the game.

If so, stop and pull out your magic wand, wave it around a few times and imagine creating the perfect professional services business —without fear of failing—what would it look like?

Got it pictured. Now, take your magic wand and break it in half because whatever professional service business you choose to create, you’ll always be in sales and marketing business.

Why, because if you won’t market and close business deals, you’ll have a rough time staying in business.

Of course, one of the keys to your success in a professional service business is knowing, without a doubt, who will want and can afford to buy whatever it is you are offering.

One of the ways to get started is to figure out what and who the perfect client may look like to you:

• What business niche are they in?
• What markets do they serve?
• Who supplies that business niche with goods & services
• Where is that niche located?
• Are there enough businesses in that niche to be profitable?
• Can they afford your services?
• Who would recommend their products or services

Answer these questions and you’ll be well on your way to discovering exactly who’ll want your services.

Next, market to your perfect client using many different marketing approaches. Some will work better than others. Some will start out like gang busters then fad off. Others will crash and burn with no ROI. It’s all good because every success and failure is a lesson and brings you closer to succeeding in your business.

The key here is to create an overall marketing strategy that includes 15 or more marketing tactics. The more marketing tactic you try, the greater your chance of getting in front of the perfect future client.

Keep in mind people absorb information in different modes. Some people like information presented verbally. Talk to them face-to-face; send them a CD/DVD or an Mp3 they can listen to in their car.  Others want info visually; they like to see videos, graphs, charts and pictures to fully understand what you offer.

You should test many different marketing tactics.

• Build an optimized website and use the Internet to describe the benefits of your service using video, audio and the written word.
• Go to networking events.
• Approach your suppliers for referrals.
• Host webinars and pod casts because they are the 21 Century brochure.
• Grow your database
• Email market your growing database
• Create a local Pay-per-click internet marketing campaign
• Develop a social media marketing plan
• Join LinkedIn, Facebook and 3-4 of the other top SMM sites.
• And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Whatever marketing you do, provide a compelling reason to try out your services. If a future client has a choice between many similar services or does not have a compelling need to buy your service, your company will not grow fast.

Targeting big business? Your ideal future client may be hidden deep within the corporate structure. Professional service providers have sometimes found it was easier to sell at a department level rather than target the CFO.

But, it can pay to go to the top first, so you can name drop to the rungs down under. Granted, it’s a lot harder to get to the CXO’s. Is it worth the effort, you’ll have to be the judge. Now, keep in mind that when you do get in front of the CXO, birds of a feather flock together and it could be your ticket into many more C-level opportunities.

Discover what your perfect future client looks like, and how to get in front of him/her and you’ll be well on your way to growing a successful professional service business.

7 Questions To Ask Before Writing Your Marketing Plan

Have you ever wondered how to streamline creating a marketing plan?

Can I show you 7 simple things to ask to help speed up creating your next marketing plan?

The first question to ask is, “Do I really need a marketing plan.”
You may not. If everything you are doing to bring in all the business you want, don’t change a thing. Even if you or your staff are bored with it. Let it keep profiting until it stops profiting.

Next ask, “What do I want a marketing plan to do for me and my business.”
Many marketing plans are written as part of a business plan. Also, marketing plans are written when looking for new or more funding. Most marketing plans are created as a road map, a guide to the next 12-18 months of marketing campaigns

Now, “What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?” Answer in a compelling way, why anyone would choose your products, services or ideas over all the other choices they have, including doing nothing.

Of course, you are making and “Irresistible Offer” every time you are in front of someone. Business and marketing are all about offers.  You give me this and I’ll give you that. Keep in mind that without an offer, no business transpires. Think of the many times you have seen an advertisment or marketing message and couldn’t figure out what was being offered. Don’t make this critical mistake. State exactly what you will be offering in your marketing plan.

OK, “Where is your ideal future client or customer?” Not just anyone, but who is the ideal fit for your products, services or ideas. Where can you find enough of your ideal future clients to be profitable? When you do find them, how much do you know about their hopes, aspirations, desires, fears, problems, etc? Take off your shoes and walk in your future clients shoes for a week and see, hear and feel what they see hear and feel. Then and only then, will you know their real problems.

I’m sure you’ve decided on which, if any, of the many of the different “marketing media options you’ll want to test.” Options like direct respons mailing campaigns, yellow page ads or email marketing. How about tele-marketing, newspaper display ads or Webinars? Networking, Social media marketing or pay-per-click marketing? We could go on and on and on, but you get the idea. Where are you going to spend your marketing budget?

Finally, as long as you are going after new clients, “How are you capturing their personal information?” I don’t mean their shoe size, waist size or height (but you may need them depending on what you are selling). Are you asking for their name, email address and snail mail address? If not, how will you communicate with them in the future?

Now grab a piece of paper and start answering these questions. Doing so will focus your marketing plan and anyone reading it will know exactly the what, where, when, who and how you are planning to market your business.

Ok, I admit it; there are more then 7 questions to answer.
You should have seen the ones I edited out.
I’ve saved them for another article in the near future, so keep checking back.

What to speed up the creation of your advertsing and marketing plan?

Coming in August http://www.FastMarketingPlan.com

Proof Will Help You Sell More Products, Services and Ideas:

Go ahead, take a few minutes today and look at every marketing message you are putting out…

Ask yourself:
Am I providing my reader, viewer and listener the proof and credibility that what I’m saying is indeed true?

How many times have you seen an ad on TV and said to yourself “Yea. Right. Sure it is?”

Let’s face it… we are all slammed with so many marketing messages a day, that we stop believing most of them.

So how do make your marketing messages more believable?

Start by take a closer look at the benefits of what you are selling.

Think about all the ways you can prove your benefits actually exist.
Ask yourself:
•    What are the strongest “Reasons Why” anyone should believe they’ll get what I promise?
•    How much more specific can I be?
•    What solid proof have I offered showing what I claim it true?
•    Have I begun to think about how I can strengthen my guarantees?
•    Is there a way to demonstrate your product/service in action?
•    Can you get a celebrity endorsement?

Answer these questions and apply these ideas to what you are selling and you are well on your way to providing the proof people need to believe your benefits will deliver.

“No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.”
-Henry David Thoreau

Quick Bonus Marketing Tip:

Thousands of marketing experts say that it costs 5 to 6 times more to win a new client than it does to retain an existing one.  What about your company? Is it true for you too?

Yet, most companies spend a small portion of their sales and marketing budget on client relationship management.

Take a moment and think about how much more profit you could generate by deepening your existing client relationships?

Rather than finding ways to get your sales people to “make 20 unqualified appointments this week,” instead, think about the easiest way to building stronger relationships.

Think about all the way you can say “Thank You.” All the ways you can show that you appreciate their business and enjoy the relationship you have.

Here are a few simple ways to get you started.
1. Send a hand written thank you card or note.
2. Drop off a small gift.
3. Bring a flower to the gatekeeper you’re trying to get past.
4. Take your client to breakfast or lunch to talk about ways to improve profits in the coming year.
5. Hold a customer appreciation party.
6. Have your CEO write a personal letter of thanks.

Now go out and give thanks. Show your appreciation.
It feels great and is sure reduces your client attrition rate.

Did you learn something today that you can use in your business or in your life?

Wherever you go and whatever you do, try to focus on learning something.

Useful information is everywhere—for example, you can find it in meetings with prospects; in attending seminars; and in reading books, magazines, and newspapers.

The information you learn can be applied in many ways.

There is something useful to be learned in every situation, even when you see or hear something with which you don’t agree.

It does you no good to be critical or angry.

These attitudes usually prevent you from learning something.

For example: A former business partner of mine complained a lot. He would go to various seminars and would get upset if the speaker didn’t cover every single item on the syllabus or covered them in a different order. I would tell him, “So what?”

“When you’re through learning, you’re through.”
- Vernon Law

To me, it was far more important to take away something useful from these seminars.

In every situation into which you are thrown, it’s important to learn all of the useful information possible.

Ask yourself constantly, “How can I use this idea or that concept to help to my clients or myself grow our businesses bigger and stronger?”

Every piece of information has the ability to lead you closer to your goal, but you have to recognize the opportunity.

Remember to write down everything that you can while you are learning. If you don’t, you risk losing the idea, and it may be gone forever.

What useful information did you learn today?

Three Revealing Tips To Writing A Profitable Ad?

Are you frustrated because your ads are not getting the response you thought they deserved?

Here are three tips that are 100% guaranteed to help you improve any ad.

Tip One:
Write a powerful headline that stops your reader dead in their tracks.
Get them say to themselves. “I’ve gotta know more”

To create great headlines, run to your nearest magazine rack. Swipe and use the tested headlines from the most popular publications. Publications like: The National Enquirer, People, Sports Illustrated and Games. They have spent huge bucks testing and proving that these headline work. Headlines get the publishers magazines flying off the shelves. Use them as models to create your headlines.

Tip 2:
What do you want your future client to do AFTER you’ve convinced them that they need what you are offering?

A powerful technique is to take your reader, viewer or listener by the hand and tell them exactly what to do. Tell them to call your phone number now. Come into your shop today. Go to your website and order right now.

Put simply, people want to be lead.
They need to know exactly what to do… or,
they won’t do anything at all.

Tip 3:
Tell stories in your ad.

People are naturally curious.

Since childhood, we love hearing stories.
We also love picturing ourselves in the story.

When you use stories to tell the real reasons why you are offering what you are offering, people trust and believe you. Why? It’s human nature and you can’t fool with Mother Nature.

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp.
The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
-Ursula K. LeGuin

One of the most important parts of storytelling is being totally honest.
People can smell a fake story a mile away.

Also, when you mention, in your stories a minor problem with what are selling, it keeps you honest and builds trust.

So, there you have it. With a little practice, you’ll use these three tips to improve any ad you are running anywhere. On the web, in the paper, on the radio or TV.

Imagine what would happen if you found more tips like this on this blog.
Some people will find a lot more marketing secrets, strategies and tactics here too.

How much do you love your clients and their business?

Even more importantly, how much do you love helping your clients?

How passionate are you about it?

I have met so many business owners over the years who are just not very passionate about what they do or sell.

This makes me wonder, “Why did they go into business in the first place?”

Having passion for your business is an essential part of successful marketing.

In fact, the passionate drive to succeed is a huge factor in the success of any business.

If you love what you are doing, then your success will be so much greater than what you will achieve if you don’t.

Whether or not you are truly excited about what your business has to offer will be very evident to all of your customers and prospects. It will come across in every¬thing that you do, in all of the words that you write, and in how you speak about the products/services that you offer.

If you really believe in your business, then your intensity will be transferred to your employees in the amount of effort that they put forth, and to your cus¬tomers and prospects in a way that will increase their interest in your products/services.

If you are passionate about what your business does, the result will be more sales. It does not matter what motivates your passion, whether it is making money, or loving the “in-charge” feeling that you get with self-employment, or enjoying the freedom of setting your own hours.

If you maintain a love and passion for your business, you will find that many people will want to do business with you, both now and in the future. Passion breeds success, and success breeds more success.

If you don’t love what you are doing—if you are not totally passionate about it—then go find something else!

“Passion is everything.”
-David Copperfield

People will have a hard time believing you if you don’t have passion for what you are doing. Your clients and prospects can sense it in you when you don’t believe in what you are marketing.

You might fool them once, but you won’t fool them twice.

Be passionate about your business. It will catch on fire.

What are you doing to show how much you love what you do and the things that you sell?

“I can do it myself” said the frustrated business owner.
Let’s face it, it’s hard for a business owner to give up a responsibility in his/her business for fear of it not being completed or a variation of staggering reasons.
Most entrepreneurs treat their business as if it was their own children and it’s hard to just let anyone take care of your kids…right.
This is why it’s important when considering to outsource a function within your business that you are comfortable with that company and that they have your best interest at heart.
However we live in an outsourced world.
More and more companies are looking to outsource certain functions of their business so they can focus on running the business better.
Companies are outsourcing their HR department, Billing, Client Service, Advertising & Marketing, Project Management, Payroll, Accounting, Distribution and a host of other functions.
Reducing costs may not be the only reason to consider outsourcing, however for most this is the ideal situation.
There are many benefits to outsourcing:
•    Focus on your core business!
•    Reduce risk in most cases!
•    Compete with big businesses!
•    Focus on other projects!
•    Increase overall efficiency!
My company for example will handle a company’s entire marketing and advertising needs from strategic market planning to total implementation to finding out what makes your client’s love you.
This in essence frees up your company from having to either higher someone for this particular position which the average salary being a little over $75,000 per year, plus benefits.

Or, having to hire an ad agency who’s primary goal is to sell expensive media and win awards that make them look good and lead to more client’s for them.

Be careful; Ask trusted advisior for recommendations when looking for qualified advise.