“No matter how much work you can do. no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far in business if you cannot work through others.” – John Craig
Monthly Archive for November, 2007
1. Speak to people
2. Smile at people
3. Call people by name
4. Be friendly and helpful
5. Be cordial
6. Have a genuine interest in people
7. Be generous with praise
8. Be considerate of the feelings of others
9. Be thoughtful of the opinions of others
10. Be alert to give service
Source: John C. MaxwellÂ
Should we lower our price to attract more customer? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
“Being the least expensive won’t get you anywhere if the prospect has no confidence to buy. Many times low price actually scares the buyer.” – Jeffrey H. Gitomer.
Why do salespeople fail? Because they think they will!
Several national tests have revealed the following startling statistics about why salespeople fail.
15% Improper training in both product and sales skills.
20% Poor verbal and written communication skills.
15% Poor or problematic boos or management.
50% Attitude
Salespeople (or anyone else) could succeed 50% more if they would just change the way they think.
Here is what I learn from reading “A list of things you can do to have a better attitude” from my friend’s office wall:
- When something goes wrong, remember it’s no one’s fault but yours
- For one year read only positive books and material
- Ignore people who tell you “you can’t” or try to discourage you
- Help others without expectation or measuring (keeping score)
- Bible verse: COUNT your BLESSINGS every day
“We become what we think about.” – Earl Nightingale
Change your attitude and it will miraculously affect your success and income!
Loyal customers have always been important to an organization’s long-term success. Due to the heightened competition of today’s market, customer loyalty is arguably more important than ever before.
According to a Customer Loyalty expert Frederick Reichheld, of management consulting Bain & Company, 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase an organization’s profitability by 25 to 100 percent. On the other hand, an organization that sees its customer retention rate slip by 5 percent may see its bottom line drop by as much as half.
How does customer retention produce such dramatic economic benefits?
- Acquire new customers is more expensive than maintain
- Loyal customers tend to increase the volume of their purchase over time
- Long term customers typically cost less to serve as they are generally more familiar with your policies and processes
- Loyal customers are the best source of REFERRALS
- Loyal customers are generally less price sensitive than other customers and are more willing to pay a premium for products and service
Building customer loyalty rests on establishing strong relationships with your customers!
Although controversy swirls around issues relating to building brands on the Internet, there is no disputing one simple point. Having a strong and trusted brand is essential to success on the Web. Visitors surf in from a variety of sources ranging from search engines to affiliate links to offline promotions.
Customers are reluctant to give their money to an entity with which they do not have an established relationship. A known and trusted brand gives the greatest possible reassurance that they will have a satisfactory purchase and use experience.
There are four stages in the brand-building process that are reminiscent of the familiar advertising hierarchy of effects:
Awareness > familiarity > positive imagery > completed transaction
Awareness represents a nodding acquaintance with the brand, and as noted, it is measured by ability to recognize the brand or recall being exposed to it.
Familiarity suggests some knowledge of the product, its features, and service offered.
The next stage is the creation of a positive brand image. A positive image is created by marketing programs that link strong, favorable, and unique associations to the brand in memory.
The final stage in this model, the transaction itself, should be the beginning of a RELATIONSHIP, not the end of a process.
The essence of building a brand is to ensure that the customer experience is satisfying and enjoyable. The experience must also be designed to convey a consistent promise to the customer and to adhere to the values of the enterprise and the brand.
It is the TOTAL EXPERIENCE, online and offline, that builds strong and enduring brand.
Viral Marketing is a promotion that, either by design or accident, catches on with Internet users and is passed from one to the other; multiplying the effectiveness of the original distribution.
The classic viral email is the series of Wazzup Super Friends parodies. In case you missed it, clips of animated characters including Superman and Wonderwoman we edited so they appeared to be delivering a Budweiser commercial. The creators of the clips insist that they sent them to only seven friends. Those people liked them and forwarded the clips to their friends. The rest is history. There is no count of how many people finally received them, but they became known worldwide and spawned many imitators.
There are five important necessary elements in developing a viral marketing campaign:
1. You must give away free products or service that appeal to the user. Often the user has to pass the message along in order to claim the free gift
2. Make the transfer effortless by creating compressed messages that can be downloaded and transmitted quickly
3. Make it easy for the program to grow quickly. In most instances it must catch on and spread immediately
4. Use common motivations including the desire to be “in the know” or the desire for free goods
5. Use existing communication networks. The ubiquity of email and the communications networks between friends is what make viral marketing work. Most Internet users have their own distribution list to whom they can quickly circulate items of interest.
Professor Clay Shirky of Hunter College adds that viral marketing “requires two things often in short supply in the marketing world: honesty and execution.”
Permission Marketing author Seth Godin has written a book on viral marketing and in the true viral spirit he makes it available for download free of charge at www.ideavirus.com.