Creative Marketing for Home Businesses
Okay, so you re working from home and you need a way to effectively market your products or business. Likely, you don t have much money to really put into an ad campaign and besides, it gets so hard to find a really good, unique ad campaign to stick with. So what are your best choices? How can you stretch your dollar the farthest and still get the most bang for that buck? It s time to get creative. Creativity will help you work more effectively, build your business and increase your income fast. So where do we start? There are many ways to creatively market your business. We ve simply chosen a few to highlight that have worked for us. Hopefully reading through our successful tools will help you get your own creative juices flowing.
Customer Service Tips for Mail Order Businesses
Can we be too good to our customers? No way! Our customers are the backbone of our business! They re right no matter what! But I m sorry to disagree with you. As small, honest and legitimate businesses - we have a tendency to place our product quality above money. While this is the right way of building a strong, solid business there are customers that will try to take advantage of you. You have to learn how to notice this possibility coming and bow out gracefully without losing the customer. Remember that most newcomers to the world of mail order think that they are ordering from BIG companies just because we have a company name! They cannot conceive how poor and struggling a lot of us really are. They think we can absorb costs and because they are poor themselves, will often try and take advantage of people like us.
Getting The Most Out of Your Employees
Managing for Best Performance In it s simplest form, performance management is a common sense set of discussions that make sure people are clear about what they need to do, have the support to do it and get open and honest feedback on their performance. Any performance management process should answer 4 important questions for your employees: Direction: What do I need to do and how well? Feedback: How am I doing? Rewards: What happens when I do well? Support Development: What happens when I need want help? Lets look more closely at each of these: Direction Employees are not mind readers. Just because it is clear to the manager exactly what is expected, doesn t mean the employee has the same understanding. Having a detailed discussion about exactly what the job requires and any specific priorities is the first step in good performance management.
The Dissatisfied Customer
We, as small business people, naturally dislike complaints from our clients and customers. Because we re intimately involved with our home businesses, small businesses, or freelance careers, any complaint takes on a personal commentator. A dissatisfied customer is a direct reflection on our performance and a blow to our egos. The common reaction of small business people to a consumer complaint is defensive posturing and or avoidance. But ignoring a disgruntled customer can be much more damaging than small business owners realize. When consumer complaints are avoided or ignored, the customer still needs to vent. A study done at Western Washington University and Illinois State University, shows that consumers who had a bad experience at a store most often responded in three ways: They decided not to shop at the store again.
Saying Thank You to Your Clients
Thanking your customers - Why you should do it and how... Your customers make up 100 of your sales and 100 of your profits. Yet we spend a lot of money and time beating the bushes for new customers and not much time thanking those responsible for 100 of our business! One lesson your mother taught you was to say thank you when someone did something nice. We tend to give lip service to saying thank you to our customers by using phrases like Thank you and have a nice day. But after using the same phrase repeatedly, it becomes rote, and not very heartfelt. So what can you do? Customer Service Experts say that people complain more than they praise. Taking the time to show customers how much you appreciate their business is important.
Employee Motivation: It s More Than A Paycheck
Managers often ask, usually with exasperation, How can I keep my employees motivated? I pay them decently. What else is there? Offering competitive salaries is certainly important. But a paycheck is what helps people get to sleep at night, not what gets them going in the morning. What keeps them committed to come in on the weekend or stay late or go that extra mile is more than money - it s the day-to-day stuff like respect, fairness, recognition and feeling in control of their small piece of the world. Here are 10 powerful ways to gain employee s cooperation and commitment to the team, department or organization. Don t play favorites. People make judgments about what they see in the workplace. Are promotions fair? Is low performance dealt with quickly? Is their equal treatment for the top floor as well as the shop floor?
Where to FIND the BEST Employees
Obviously, you might logically say, that is good! You would most certainly be on track feeling good about everyone in your area having a job. Getting everyone working and being more self-sufficient is our logical goal. WHAT IS FULL EMPLOYMENT? For many years, the marketplace has considered 4 to be reaching a full-employment level. Very few employee choices are available. Many in the 4 unemployed group have little or no talent to offer. No basic valuable marketable skills. Most of these unemployed persons have a very poor work history. Not all, but a large majority have a limited education at best. OUTSOURCING and DOWNSIZING News continues to flow regarding outsourcing by major employers in almost every industry. Jobs are moved to an outside service for economic reasons. Many employers cut their workforce to meet PROFIT expectations for the quarter.
Top 10 customer service tips
1. Hire people who have a service attitude. Some people simply enjoy serving others, their organizations, and even their communities. The spirit of service dominates their personality. This attitude of service has nothing to do with money or background, and people who have this attitude are not necessarily the most outgoing or bubbly. This type of person will move your business forward. These people make the best salespeople as well. 2. Make the customer s time with you an experience. You have but a few short moments with customers. You don t have time to complain about your day or anything else. Ask yourself, How can I make their experience better? Can I refer to them by name and how can I ask without being too aggressive? How can I control the environment in this company?
Marketing as a Spiritual Practice
Marketing as a spiritual practice. It sounds contradictory - how can sales and promotion possibly be considered spiritual? But the secret is, once you truly understand that marketing isn t all about struggle, jargon, tricks or gimmicks, spiritual practice is the very root of success. Sound completely airy-fairy? We understand the response. But in reality, marketing consists of a set of specific actions or practices. And only you can decide whether you wish to tackle them in angst, or with value and truth i.e., as a spiritual practice. Once you learn how to apply this practice to your marketing, you ll make more money, attract clients truly right for you, and feel exponentially more satisfied. HOW IT WORKS We know that it is unlikely in the first 20 years of a business to have the experience to know which strategies will work and that it s virtually impossible to have the objectivity needed to create a clear, concise marketing message for oneself.
The Sellers Creed
I will not make sales. I will make Customers. I will target the heart of my Customer. Never their wallet. My Customer is the lifeblood of my business. Though I may sell my Customers what they want, I will deliver what they need and make their lives better. Courtesy and Service are cornerstones of my relationship with my Customer. I will view complaints as opportunities... opportunities to create lifelong Customers. The quality of my products and how I treat my Customers will determine the level of My Success. My prosperity will come from growing people. My best advertisement is my product, and, the Customer service behind it. Making money without making friends is not good business. I will guide my business with the perfect blend of heart and mind. I will make Integrity my trademark.