How often has this question been asked by you, your boss, your sales manager, or someone else?

The only one who really knows the answer is your former client.

So, why don’t you ask this person why s/he no longer buys from your company? You might get lucky and find a client who is prepared to talk, but keep in mind that s/he has moved on and may not want to talk to you.

Also, your customer probably will give you only one reason, then thank you for your efforts and wish you well.

How much have you learned? Not much at all.

Recently, I lost a client for whom I had created a suc­cessful direct-mail campaign. This marketing effort had produced a nice 1,148.85% Return on Investment (ROI).

Later, I found out from my client she was upset with the slow response that she was getting from me regarding a marketing questionnaire for which she had paid. After answering the questions, my client wanted her market­ing analysis, but we just couldn’t seem to find a mutually convenient time to get together.

Ultimately, I gave her a refund on the questionnaire and we parted friends.

However, to this day I feel that there had to be some­thing more. Maybe there was a hidden “decision-maker,” someone else who had a final say about who my client does business with or who harbored some ill feeling. I felt very bad when I lost my client because I was hoping that there would be a long and profitable relationship for both of us.

Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the definite reason why someone chooses to stop giving you his/her busi­ness.

It can be hard to determine what complaints s/he had about you that led to the decision. Oftentimes, you are left with very little information. Working backwards to discover what went wrong can be very difficult.

However, if you are prepared to ask a new client for a lit­tle time after the first sale or, even better, after s/he has been buying from you for awhile, then you probably can determine the things that keep him or her coming back and buying from you.

After the relationship with your client gets past the new phase and is “long-term,” ask him/her why you get his/her business. There will be many reasons, not just one or two. You may have to probe a little, so ask some open-ended questions. I’m sure that it will be worth it.

Build a file or a database of the answers that you get—the reasons why your clients came to you, of course, but also (if possible) the reasons that they stopped using your competition.

Learn from their answers and discover what you can do to prevent clients from going somewhere else. You can benefit by using what you have learned with your next prospect. This information will help you to convert him or her into a new client.

What are you willing to ask your clients about?

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?

How often do you need a “kick-in-the-butt” to get moving?

It’s a recognized fact that most people get much more done when they have someone motivating them, than they will on their own (sometimes a LOT more).

This is very true with marketing. I have to keep calling and bug­ging some of my clients to get them to do anything. They get hung up on the daily tasks of running their business. They are constantly putting out fires, and so their mar­keting efforts end up on the back burner.

“Don’t fall before you’re pushed.”
- English Proverb

Failing to allocate specific time for marketing (i.e. the daily grind of running a business) seems to prevent many business owners I know from taking the actions that are necessary to market and grow their business in a consistent way.

A trick to keeping on track is to set aside one-hour per day to work on your marketing (and nothing else). Use this time to look for “cost effective” ways to generate new prospects or to develop strategies for increasing sales to your existing customers.  If you have trouble doing this on your own, then find someone who will hold you accountable.

Most of the time, a little external “push” or “kick-in­the-butt” from somebody who is close to a business owner does wonders to get the ball rolling.

“Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope. A “you can do it” when things are tough.”
- Richard M. DeVos

An outside expert can motivate, persuade, urge, and inspire you to levels that you may have never known before. This is very important, because once you get the energy flow­ing, you will find that new ideas come from many differ­ent places.

Find an advisor whom you trust to keep you motivated and on track toward reaching your business goals. This should be someone who is willing (and has the “authority”) to get you moving. If you need someone to help motivate you, give me a call. I will be happy to give you a motivational push.

Do you have someone who is helping you to stay focused, on track, and motivated?

Do you know what happens if you don’t use what you learn?

You lose it.

It’s gone, forgotten!

And all it takes is 21 days.

I heard this long ago.

Since then, I have proven it to myself through personal experience.

It’s easy to for­get what you have just read, listened to, or watched on a DVD or the Internet. There are many distractions in life, and it’s very easy to put things aside.

Last week, I received a quote in an e-mail that said,

“Knowledge that’s not being used is like having no knowledge at all.”

If this is true, then it is important to start using what you are learning from these and other blog posts right away.

Try one idea, and then another.

Take notes as a reminder of the ideas and concepts.

Reread these blog posts and the notes that you’ve taken while reading them until the ideas are fixed permanently in your mem­ory.

Jay Abraham, the author of Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got (Truman-Tally, 2000), says that he has read Scientific Advertising—a self-published book by Claude Hopkins first issued more than 50 years ago— at least 30-40 times. According to Jay, he pulls out a new nugget or different spin on an idea each time that he reads Hopkins’ book.

How much of what you told yourself you should be trying have you forgotten this week?

Sandy publishes a wide variety of tidbits about marketing and marketing plans on a frequent basis here and at: http://www.FastMarketingPlan.com

Entrepreneur’s Toolbox to Help You to Market Your Business
(While Cutting Costs and Increasing Efficiencies)

An “Entrepreneur’s Toolbox” includes things that must be within the prospective entrepreneur’s very person but also; external tools.

First, let’s cover what you – the prospective entrepreneur – must have within yourself, in order to have a productive future.

First-and-foremost, “vision” is an absolute must.

The most successful visionaries normally have a very big picture of where it is that they want to be. (It is easier to scale back to a more practical  – and smaller – overall vision than it is to open your mind to a larger vision; once you have set your mind to something small and simple).

Secondly, you must possess plenty of “Self-Trust”.

Many speak of “innovation” as part of the ideal entrepreneur’s mind. Well, without belief in your ideas and the inner trust in yourself that what you wish to provide is needed in the world, your ability to innovate means nothing!

And, last (certainly not least) an entrepreneur must have a bit of “Intuition”. And, despite some of the ideas that the term ‘intuition’ may bring to mind, the sort of intuition that I am referring to is simply: “Knowing something without knowing how you know it”.

And, while it seems to be an in-borne quality, intuition can be developed.

The purpose of this article is to show you the external tools that can develop your intuition – as well as your vision and self-trust – to its fullest potential; in order to cut your costs and to increase your overall efficiency!

A proper business and marketing plan, devised by an outside, expert source; can help you to avoid the mistakes that many make. (Passion and drive are great qualities but, sometimes they get in the way of the bottom line!).

When it comes to your marketing, it is important to be aggressive but also, to be sure that you aren’t aggressive to the point that you trap yourself into one course of action.

Also, you don’t want to ‘burn yourself out at both ends’. So, a well-tuned Marketing Plan is absolutely crucial. To go along with that marketing plan, it is positively a must to possess a detailed, easy-to-use Marketing Calendar.

As covered in one of our other informational articles, a marketing calendar can also help you to be sure that personnel staffing, budgeting and foresight are already taken care of; with little work coming from you! Therefore, you save money, can dedicate your time to more constructive things than worrying and, have that overall satisfying feeling of stability.

A Budget Plan is very important, alone. And, while it is fine-tuned and worked-around (as well as made to be flexible) within your marketing plan (and calendar), having a realistic, organized and easy-to-monitor budget plan is an absolute must. And, just like your other external tools, a budget that is designed for your particular business and reviewed by objective experts increases the odds of your business being a success.

Just like your Marketing Plan, your overall Business Plan should contain “what if” strategies.

No matter your foresight or intuition, you can never be completely certain what emergencies may come up; nor, can you always correctly predict what you competition is going to do.

Put simply, our Business and Marketing Plans must be very flexible and objective. Being “fixed” in your planning can lead you to failure; in fact, it normally does, for most!

A Strategic Investment Plan is something that you must have ready when beginning your career as an entrepreneur.

While you may know exactly what you wish to invest in and when, just like the tools covered above, you must have plenty of flexibility in terms of your investment planning.

What your competitors do, things that happen in the economy and possible failures of past marketing are all things that may play into your needing a flexible and objective strategic investment plan. And, a common mistake that many make is grouping their investment plan in with their budget plan. When you put some thought into those two things, it becomes apparent that they need to be separate; or else you wind up with too many important factors compartmentalized into one category!

Also, depending on your business, you may be thinking more locally than Globally. Well, the right Marketing Company takes things like this into account from the very start. If you consider yourself as an aspiring entrepreneur (or if you are already an entrepreneur looking to increase his success) we have plenty of essential and proven tools that can help you along your way!

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.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing  a short story with you about what happened on July 5th, 1998.

While on a family vacation, my wife Amy and I with our four kids straggling behind made our way to see Mount Rushmore for the first time.

We had to park about a mile away because there were a ton of cars and couldn’t get any closer.

Now, picture this, we had already been on the road for about 3 weeks, a bit tired, had seen many American treasures and were very excited to be at Mount Rushmore.

As we approached, all of a sudden, we rounded a curve and there was George’s nose. The biggest nose we’d ever seen. Of course, I took a quick snap shoot (Took about an hour of serach the box with all the old photos and finally found it. Showed up in the second from last enveope).

We kept walking and walking, seeing more and more of the great presidents, getting bigger and bigger as we got closer and closer.

Finally we made it to the entrance, went in and the place was packed. People everywhere.

Turns out that the official Fourth of July Celebration was rained out the day before and we walked into the rescheduled Fourth of July Celebration.

So we walked in further, made our way to the seating area, not a seat in sight except a roped off row or two about 10 rows up.

Being one to rarely follows the rules, we made our way and sat in that row. Other’s followed and in moments, the row was filled.

Within ten minutes, the master of ceremonies started making announcements about the program that was about to start.

I gotta tell you, it was amazing, the presentation and program took about an hour and a half. There was music, dancing and celebration.

All along, the sun was going down, getting darker and darker.

Mt Rushmore July 5th, 1998 W0W!

Then suddenly, from behind the presidents, a loud boom, fireworks starting. And they got bigger and bigger. Exploding behind and shining on the rocks. Illuminating the Presidents. The fire works went on for a very ling time. Booming. Cracking. Showering us with magicial colors. It was amazing.

After the grand finally when the fireworks faded away and the smoke hovered low, my wife looked at me, my kids looked at me, tears running down my cheeks, my shirt wet, they asked why I was crying.

I was too choked up to explain my feelings to them at the time.

Anyway, that moment I’ll never forget the patriotic feelings I had.

How proud, lucky, and appreciative I was to be an American living in America. And, to be there, with my family, of all places on Earth or in America we could have been on that early July day. Wow.

You see, I just had to share this with you because every 4th of July this fond memory comes flooding back. Once again bringing tears of gratitude, appreciation for all who have been kind enough to let me be part of their life.

Thanks for allowing me to be part of your life.

Now, what fond memories do you recall of your past 4th of July’s?

What will you have gratitude and appreciation for on this 4th of July?

Go out and create your great memories of this 4th of July 2009.

And may they be fond memories that you’ll be proud to carry with you, tell your friends and family over and over for many more 4th of July’s to come.

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

Do you know what happens if you don’t use what you learn?

You lose it. It’s gone, forgotten!
And all it takes is 21 days.

I heard this long ago.

Since then, I have proven it to myself through personal experience.

It’s easy to forget what you have just read, listened to, or watched on a DVD or video.

There are many distractions in life, and it’s very easy to put things aside.

Last week, I received a quote in an e-mail that said, “Knowledge that’s not being used is like having no knowledge at all.”  If this is true, and IMHO it is, then it is important to start, immediately,  using what you are learning from whatever source you learn from, right away.

Try one idea, and then another.

Take notes as a reminder of the ideas and concepts.

Reread these secrets and the notes that you’ve taken while reading them until the ideas are fixed permanently in your memory.

“To make sure this goal was achieved, I created eight laws of learning; namely explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and repetition.”
- John Wooden

One famous marketing Gooroo (I refuse use his name because he doesn’t practice what he preaches) once said that he has read Scientific Advertising—a self-published book by Claude Hopkins first issued more than 50 years ago— at least 30-40 times.

According to this Gooroo, he pulls out a new nugget or different spin on an idea each time that he reads Hopkins’ book.

How much of what you told yourself you should be trying have you forgotten this week?

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.