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?

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?

Do you re-use your print advertising and positive publicity?

Have you run newspapers and magazines ads? How about blog posts? Are there any articles that have been written about you, about your business, or about your products and services? People may be impressed 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.  But you can re-use 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, Website, blog 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 or save as a pdf and e-mail your ads to clients and prospects.
• Post your ads on your web site and blog or Facebook
• 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.

I ran a small ad for my book “97 Marketing Secrets to Make More Money” in the Wall Street Journal and you can bet I captioned all of my reprints and other marketing efforts with the phrase “as seen in the Wall Street Journal.”

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 business 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.

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.

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

It is wise to collect and save 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.

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

Many new businesses have heard the term “Marketing Calendar” several times; with little-to-no knowledge as to what one is.

Other, more-established companies have designed their own; without seeing more success than they had prior to using this very important tool. Or (the worst-case scenario), there are the companies that have paid a very large sum of money to a huge marketing company for this very-much essential tool of business growth; only to have the investment give them a lackluster return.

Well, there are marketing calendars available that are made to fit your particular marketing plan. There are also marketing calendars out there that are easy-to-use yet, very in-depth at the same time. And, there are marketing calendars that are positive in both of those ways and, that get it right the first time!

So, whether you are a rightfully-jaded (in regards to marketing calendars) business owner or, this is your first time considering using one, we can point you in the direction of a marketing calendar that will go above-and-beyond your expectations; perhaps, even showing you possibilities that you previously hadn’t known that you business had!

Whether you have your own marketing plan that is already gaining you serious success, or you are looking for a marketing plan/marketing calendar combination, we have found a solution for you! The key factors that set a great marketing calendar apart from a run-of-the-mill one are laid out in this article.

First, we must have an understanding of what a marketing calendar really is. The simple definition is as follows: A Marketing Calendar assists you in putting your different marketing concepts into motion in a structured and organized way.

While the name “Marketing Calendar” (as well as this short definition) may invoke only thoughts of coordination of marketing efforts, a truly great marketing calendar also assists you in budgeting your marketing concepts and various business moves. So, expect more than a scheduling tool when you are making the ever-important choice of which marketing calendar to choose!

Oftentimes, those running businesses find themselves a bit overwhelmed; as, things come up (and decisions have to be made) that get them off of their original course of action. The right marketing calendar will keep the original aspects of your marketing plan in order; no matter what spur-of-the-moment crisis presents itself. Right before your eyes, you will always be able to pull up the calendar and see where you are in both the short-term, and the long; in regard to your overall goal.

Moreover, a fitting calendar can help you to be sure that you are not dispensing too much effort in the wrong areas! None of us are perfect and, we often get caught up in wasting valuable time (and we all know that time is money) on the wrong aspects of our businesses!

Most importantly: An expertly-crafted marketing calendar can help you rest at night, with the knowledge that worries like planning, budgeting and even staffing are fully under control. And, aside from the absence of worry, implementing such a needs-based calendar can garner you funds that you already had, without your knowledge! In short; such a marketing calendar saves time, money and worry!

Normally, something that assists a company so much is costly and difficult to design. Well, the right marketing calendar doesn’t have to be either of those things!  If you have designed your own plan, all that is needed from the right company is your plan and, your details are simply inserted in a way that will allow you to keep your primary focus on your day-to-day work and, simply consult the calendar to be sure that things happen when they should, how they should and, within the budget that you set out for them to work within. If the right company designs both your plan and your calendar, it is even easier to coordinate the two and, once this has been done, you are on your way to the kind of success that you long-ago imagined – the kind of results that got you into business in the first place!

Our main concern is catering to your specific needs. (As should be the main aim of any good company).  We make our marketing calendars as detailed as possible and, they are easy for anyone to use. Even those who consider themselves to be technologically-challenged can use an online, expertly-designed marketing calendar; so that they can have an overview of their business and all of its details at any time – in any place.

With that being said, your calendar should also be the magnifying glass for your marketing plan! At any time, right before your eyes, you will be able to take in easy-to-interpret (yet, detailed), organized information that will let you know whether or not you should adjust your original plan; in order to suit your current needs. This definitely helps to keep your business stable! Stability is key; most businesses who fail do so due to their owners’ inability to adjust to the ups-and-downs of income and/or changing of plans due to ineffectiveness or so-so results.

In summary, think of your marketing calendar as your business plan’s map to success. Without it, at very best – your business can survive without one. At the very least – with the right marketing calendar – your business will thrive!

Now, you may want to check out FastMarketingPlan.com to discover a fast and easy way to create your next marketing plan and marketing calendar

How happy are you with the quantity and quality of the contacts you receive from your Web site?

Many businesses complain that their Web sites do not generate enough contacts and sales leads to justify the cost. They want a better ROI for their Web sites.

We were also getting very frustrated because our Web site was generating very little e-mail and/or phone contact information. After testing a few different web design ideas, and finally decided to insert a bright, attractive, attention getting box on each web page.

This box contained our phone number and e-mail contact information.

As a result of this change, we started to receive many more calls and e-mail leads. This simple change made it very easy for anyone to contact us, and made those who did contact us feel more secure and willing to give us their business.

How can you make your business more accessible and available to new prospects and clients to generated many new sales.

As you know form experience, people will leave your Web site if they have to put too much effort into navigating it, or if they run into trouble trying to figure out how to contact you.

When a future client needs more information from you and your contact page is buried somewhere deep in your site, then it may never be found. If this happens – and it does at many sites we all have visited – then the customer is gone, maybe forever.  The sale is essentially lost. Don’t let this happen on your Web site.

What can you do to make it very simple for visitors to your Web site to find your contact information?

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.

What is the name of your business, product and services?

Your business name is usually the first image someone gets of your company and it is often imbedded in his or her mind forever.

People have a hard time separating reality from perception. If you have a bad name, then you won’t attract business; so the best option is to get a new name. A bad name never gets any better and good names are remembered forever.

One of the most important marketing decisions you can ever make is choosing the name of your business, product or service. Your name should explain or “tell a story” of exactly what your business or your product/service does.

“Have regard for your name, since it will remain for you longer than a great store of gold.”
-Ecclesiasticus

Choosing a name isn’t easy. There are so many names already in use for various businesses, products, and services that coming up with a name that is “new” can be very difficult. But remember:  your name will help determine your position in the marketplace.

Choose a name that tells prospects what the major benefits of your business are and how that can help them.
Great examples of “the perfect name” are: “Die Hard Batteries,” “Burger King,” and “Pure and Natural Soap.” These names tell a lot about the products they are selling. Select a name that is generic enough and still describes what you do. Newsweek is a fantastic name for a weekly news pub¬lication. Value City is a great name for a discount store.

It is also important to think about the future when you are deciding on a name. Choose a name that won’t become “out-of-date,” or one that would allow a competitor to come in with a better, more descriptive name and take your marketing position away.

Your name could well be the difference between success and failure in the marketplace. If you are first to the market with an unusual name like Xerox, and you offer a great product/service, then your name can be almost anything. But you can’t get away with an unusual name if you are not the first into the marketplace, and own the top position. It’s hard to build market identity with a non-descriptive name, unless you are the one who creates the market.

What does your  name Do, help or hurt your business?

5 Simple Secrets To Social Media Marketing Success To Grow Business
By Sandy Barris

Let’s face it, you can’t go a day without hearing about, seeing the effects of or feeling your gut telling you learn more social media marketing techniques to help your grow your business.

Social media marketing (SMM) is everywhere.

You watch a news report and the newscaster gives you their Twitter name and asks you to Tweet them. Your best friend puts up a Facebook page and asks you why you don’t have one yet? Your boss asks you to create a Linked In page for him and to get him connected with as many of your clients, suppliers and prospects as possible.

And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Here are a few mind-boggling social media stats to ponder.
•    200,000,000 – active Facebook users
•    10,000,000  – average daily Tweets
•    900,000 – average number of blog posts in a 24 hour period

Nielsen Online shows that: Social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular online activity ahead of personal email. Member communities are visited by 67% of the global online population; time spent is growing at 3 times the overall Internet rate, accounting for almost 10% of all Internet time. Wow. And to think it’s exponential. Today, this. Tomorrow?

So, how can your use social media marketing to help grow your business?

1. Social media marketing is a great way to generate traffic to your website. Every time you post anything anywhere, complete your post with your contact information, a call to action and a link back to your Website, landing page or your Blog.
2. ost to your blog every 2-3 days. Post tips, tactics and techniques. Reveal secrets, “how-to’s” and ideas. Keep your content fresh and it will be picked up by the searched engines and served up as valuable information when someone hits on one of the keywords in your blog posts. If you don’t have a blog, see tip No. 3 below.
3. Post comments on other people’s blogs, on message boards, on forums and Facebook posts. Answer peoples questions, Help solve their problems and ask for there help solving your problems too. Post book reviews on Amazon and other book seller sites. Every post will help to build your credibility in that community. Let’s face it, he more credibility you build, the more likely people will click on your signature link to see what else you have to say and offer.
4. Create Pod cast and videos of your content and distribute using the many free and paid distribution services on the Internet. One of my favorites Websites for video distribution is Tube Mogul, a free service that sends your videos in the correct format to 26 different website for video distribution, saving you time. Plus they have great tracking tools to see how far and wide your videos are distributed.
5. Use your public profiles as an integral part of your Social Media Marketing plans and search engine marketing strategy. Everyone searches online, including your prospects and customers. Having strong, keyword ladden, public pages helps people find you fast.  Every time you put up a new public page, or update an existing one, it calls the search engines and let’s them know to come and see the new information. As you create your profiles you are actually build up your name recognition, and making it easier for people to find you, and you want to be found, don’t you?

The benefits of Social Media Marketing are hugely important in their role as a search engine marketing strategy.  The more traffic to your website and blogs, the more connections you make, equals more awareness, leading to sales and higher profits for you and your business.

When will you start your social media marketing plan and kick it into high gear?

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.