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How Marketing Research Benefits You?

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:37:00 -0400

By Natalie Hunte

We have already established your need for Marketing Research, and we understand that research (on some level) is not “out of reach” for any small business. Marketing Research is a necessary tool for the growth of your company!

Marketing Research can reveal:

· The effect that certain market (and other) trends are having on your customers and your sales e.g. the impact of the recent budget and the uncertainty in the international markets.

· How and why customers purchase your products/services.

· The level of satisfaction of your customers.

Types of Research:

They are two main types of research:

Secondary (looking at the broader picture)
Primary (getting specific)

One advantage of secondary research is that the data is already collected and compiled, and is just waiting for you to use it. For example, one can gather census information through the Barbados Statistical Service.

Demographical & Statistical data - this information is a general picture of the population. However, the data is raw and you will need to extract and calculate what is important for your needs.
A Day Club for Seniors can use this type of data to get a picture of the amount of individuals set to retire in 2011, and those individuals over the age of 60-65 in a particular socio economic background to assist in building a marketing strategy.

Primary research is fine-tuned research seeking to answer a specific question, i.e. should we move to another location?

Interaction with customers - the best research is to talk directly to the source, and solicit feedback. This can be conducted casually, by getting to know your customers while they shop, or requesting their feedback through a comment box (offer incentives to increase effectiveness).
Online resources – social Media, online polls, blogs, forums, and other companies’ websites.
Qualitative Methods – offers insight into customer behaviours through focus groups or one –on–one interview.
Quantitative Methods – surveys and questionnaires directly questioning the target market.

With that information in hand, choose your marketing research weapon and use it in your battle to thrive, and not just exist in the market.

Natalie Hunte is an Independent Consultant specializing in Basic Marketing Research. She manages a small consultancy – CANOPY Solutions where the aim is to assist clients with strategic decisions through the Art of Marketing Research.

Tel: 826-1018

canopysolutions@gmail.com

The Emergence of women in entrepreneurship: A new phenomenon?

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:37:00 -0400

By Kathy-Ann Fletcher

I am surrounded by female entrepreneurs everyday in the art and marketing worlds, my mom and consider myself a budding one as well. Therefore it does not surprise me to read that worldwide female entrepreneurship is on the rise.

Countries like the UK are experience what are reported as phenomenal increase in female entrepreneurship while in some circles the lack of female entrepreneurs is being lamented. However, upon reading, researching and observing I am of the firm belief that there is no such lack, neither is it a recent phenomenon.

For centuries, women have been developing innovative solutions to our problems and running successful business. From shipping magnates who in the 17^th century flourished in this male dominated world to the creator of Barbie and Ken, women have a rich history in entrepreneurship. In several cases, the female was the pioneer in the industry as we see with Lillian Vernon the Queen of the Mail order Catalogue.

Just like every other entrepreneur, women take risks to get themselves and their families and communities better lives. Madame C.J Walker came from unprivileged circumstances to become the first black female millionaire. She used this fortune to empower other women in business.

In the Caribbean, we have a strong tradition of female entrepreneurs such as the visionary who took the bold step of purchasing a former plantation and turning it into what is now a successful dairy farm operating by the fifth generation of her family.

It is great to see that this worldwide trend of female entrepreneurship is carried on in Barbados with young and experienced trailblazers. From young ladies with a passion for beauty to visionary with a flair for design, female entrepreneurs are stepping up to the plate and taking risks.

Entrepreneurship now and then knows no gender. Where there is a lack in female entrepreneurs that is where we have put the limitations on ourselves. As I consider the example of those who went before me, I am inspired by the ability to persevere in the face of daunting situations to dominate male centric industries.

Kathy-Ann is a marketing executive with Crimson-Jade Consulting Inc with a passion for communications and strategic planning.

Finding and Conquering New Markets

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:36:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

The business of finding new markets and conquering them can be a resource intensive exercise, without a lot of time, money or energy. It is going to be an uphill battle.

So you want to enter a new market and conquer it. Alrite, it’s this simple - Find a need ...and fill it.

It sounds simple, but you need to keep this clearly in focus. Entrepreneurs often burst into a new market being a little cocky and a lot optimistic. Sometimes they get lucky and it works out. Other times they find out that they didn't quite understand the need they were attempting to fill. It’s not a total failure though because they can evolve their product of service to fill that need. There are other times when our human habits can bring many an entrepreneur to his or her knees. The customers might think your product is great and they would love to have it, however they are comfortable with what they have. They are comfortable and they are not willing to switch their habits. This translates into no sales for you. It might be described as an idea whose time has not yet come. These are all real considerations when you are attempting to find new markets and conquer them.

What can you do to influence the outcome?

A tactic I truly believe in is that of joint venture. More than anything else joint ventures can help to mitigate the risk of failure in attacking a new market. Ideally you want to partner with another organization who is already serving your market well with another product. The benefit here is that they will have a good relationship with your potential customers already and you can use their goodwill to push your product. You can also learn get alot of “market research” directly from that organization as they already have intimate relationships with your target market. Alternatively you can partner with an organization, who is also new to the market also but they can add a complimentary aspect to your product or service that makes your offering all the more compelling. This can go a long way in convincing your potential customers to try out your new product.

A tip for the road would be to listen to those who you are serving. Many times persons get too caught up in looking at their competition and not listening to the people rooting for them. These persons who are interested in your success can help you evolve your product to conquer the market.

Entering a new market and conquering it is a big ask but it can be an exhilarating and exciting ride.

Essentials of Deal Making for Entrepreneurs

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:22:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

Deal making is always an interesting challenge, no matter the level of business you are conducting. The key thing in making a deal is having a clear understanding of your business. This sounds simple, but it is challenging to always have a clear picture of what stage your business is and where your marketing is going.

Imagine you are in the middle of your office trying to meet a demanding deadline and someone is asking your make the final decision on some special deal. We agree it’s not easy.

Every deal you enter into is really to help you get another important piece of the puzzle for your business. I think there is no one size fits all when it comes to wheeling and dealing. Each business has special requirements. It is easy for entrepreneurs to get carried away in dialog about some new opportunity. In no time they will be playing with the thought of making a new deal. Talking ideas and visions of the future is what entrepreneurs do! Sometimes though, all the business needs is to do more of the same. Stick with the game plan and you will come out on top.

You might want to fancy your business like a formula 1 car. You get into it, start the ignition and off to your destination at break neck speed, barely slowing down enough to take the corners. The thing that makes a Formula 1 car special, is its near perfect balance between weight and power. You can't just fit another mirror on a formula 1 car because it was a “sweet deal”. That mirror will disrupt your balance.

It's key that as you go about building your business, you evaluate every deal against your near perfect balance between resources & demand. It is your job as an entrepreneur to fit the pieces together in an optimal way.

You want your business to get to a certain destination and in a certain time. You've got to fit the parts together in the right way.

As a result you have got the measure each deal against that weight vs power balance. You should be careful when getting involved in any exclusive deals. Exclusive means its along with you for almost your entire journey. Are you sure it’s not going to create any drag on lap 3? Will that grind you to a halt? These are some serious questions you have to ask yourself before jumping into and exclusive deal.

Nothing is wrong with starting with a short term contract so you get to test drive the deal. Get feedback and then move forward.

Happy Driving!

Essentials of Time Management for the Entrepreneur

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:26:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

We are talking time management so let me time myself in writing this blog post ... Let's go!

This is been a personal challenge for me and just about every entrepreneur out there. From another vantage point it might be labelled 'productivity'.

Obviously we would all love to find ways to improve our productivity levels. Over the past few years I have adopted two philosophies for improved productivity and time management that I would encourage everyone to explore.

· Stephen Covey & The 7 habits of Highly Effective people - http://www.franklincovey.com/

· David Allen & The Getting Things done philosophy GTD. – www.davidco.com

Stephen Covey's system deals primarily with establishing priorities while David Allen’s system is concerned with getting things done in the midst of a crisis or chaotic situation.

Interestingly enough I must make mention of Bob and the guys at Rexwireless.com for marrying these technologies into one application for your blackberry called ToDoMatrix, which I have written about in this post. You might also find Alertmatrix to be an interesting companion to ToDoMatrix.

Another thing that business owners tend to complain about is lack of focus or being called away from the task at hand. I learnt a very simple process. It's quite simple - time yourself!

Timing yourself also allows you to make sense of this elusive thing we call time. When you are able to look at a spreadsheet that shows how you are performing in terms of time on your tasks, it empowers you to plan your time better for future projects

It makes time into another resource in your business you need to manage. You will find that all the creative ideas start to emerge on how you can double up your tasks. While you wait on one process to complete, you can get another one started.

You might want to listen to podcasts on your Industry while you are on the road. Maybe you can use your time in the bank line to send those emails you seem never to get the time to send off. These ideas are some simple tactics that can lift a big load off your shoulders.

The key is it all starts with timing the processes in your business and then measuring that against the big picture for your business.

P.S. This took me 2 hours to write including all the editing and rewriting to make my points clear and looking back into some of the theories deciding if to include them or not.

Add 10 minutes for dotting the initial ideas, that's 2 hours 10 minutes. You know the weird thing? This is probably how long it takes you to write an in-depth email. Well could be easily 40 minutes. The question is do you set aside 40 minutes to write your in-depth emails?

Corey Graham 2.0 is a Social Media Maven and entrepreneur. He is a blogger with CoreyKGraham.me/bizblog and Director of Connections & Chief Conversationalist at DrenalinProductions.biz. Also he is co-founder and partner of GramStep, a networking group and support system for entrepreneurs.

Practical ways to grow your Social Media following?

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:26:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

What a question! There are a lot of tricks to the trade and tactics people use to get quick followers. However they all have to be based on the core values of finding friends we all know. Some of them might abuse it, but it’s pretty much based on the same principles. I break these down as -

- Get attention and show your valuable.
- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (The Golden Rule)

If you want real humans following you, rather than fake accounts or spam generated accounts, you have to be golden.

Here are some tips for growing your followers the practical way. Oh and let me be blunt, this will take time! Even if you find some time saving tactics. It will still take time and energy to get done.

Final thing before I get directly into the practical advice. Think about an entertainer local or international that's really loved. Actually it could be anyone you notice who tends to have lots of friends and people around them.
Ask yourself, what makes people want to be around them?

While you chew on that, let me throw the practical advice at you.

Keep the Golden Rule in mind - do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Engage people - This is pretty simple follow people on twitter. Ask questions to specific people, esp. your key customers. How do you feel when a company you love asks your opinion publicly?

Sharable content - Create content that people can and are willing to share at the click of a button.

Keeping it updated - Make sure people can trust to have the latest information from your social media.

Get listed - place your url wherever is appropriate. Your Email signature and your directory is a good place to start.

Network - Just like you would at a cocktail party, go and meet the people you think would be interested in what you are doing.

Good luck with growing your followers. Be Golden.

Corey Graham 2.0 - Blogger At CoreyKGraham.me/bizblog and Director of Connections & Chief Conversationalist at DrenalinProductions.biz

Marketing Research 101 - An Introduction

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:23:00 -0400

By Natalie Hunte

At school, Mathematics was never my favorite subject. I do not consider myself an “expert” in the field of Marketing Research, however, I love Marketing! I remember that I was sold since my first Marketing class – “Marketing 101”. I knew immediately that Marketing was to be my career path, and I have been a “practitioner” ever since. Whether it was my day job, or just offering free advice to anyone who needed it, or would listen, Marketing is my passion.

This blog will not be one that bores you with unusable data that is not related to your needs, and there definitely will not be any reference to advanced levels of Math or Statistics that are associated with Research. Rather I will offer a basic introduction and approach to you as an entrepreneur. I will attempt to guide you towards incorporating easy Marketing Research tools that if properly used, will enhance the probability of success in your business.

At my company CANOPY Solutions we offer support and advice similar to that which you will learn about in this blog. All of my conclusions are firmly rooted with sound Marketing Research principles. After all, how can my clients accomplish great success with their brands/products if I do not have scientific methods as the foundation to a conclusion? Good Marketing, and Marketing Research is really the basis of any product’s success, and this is the premise on which I approach each client and each project.

As one of my professors simply put it – “Marketing is satisfying a need that exists, or creating a need and then satisfying it”. Marketing is about the general buying and selling i.e. getting the good/service from the producer/store into the hands of the customer or consumer. However, in Marketing Research one must get their ‘hands dirty’ as you probe into finding out what makes your customers (prospective/current) purchase/not purchase your product or service. Marketing Research gives the you the upper hand by providing the data needed, for the purpose of making changes or to fine-tune your product. The ultimate goal is to make your customers happy, buy more products and inform others who will also buy products. ($$$)

So let us begin. What is Marketing Research?

Natalie Hunte is an Independent Consultant specializing in Basic Marketing Research.

She manages a small consultancy – CANOPY Solutions where the aim is to assist clients with strategic decisions through the Art of Marketing Research.

Tel: 826-1018

canopysolutions@gmail.com

Always Time for Down Time

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:20:00 -0400

By Omar Best-Delice

One of the major problems with small and medium enterprises, is that too many are concerned with fixing the day-to-day things (the easy stuff) and spend significantly less time planning long term strategy (the hard stuff). Or even worse, they confuse the two; thinking they are being strategic in focus; when instead they may still only be looking from the short term operational or tactical perspective, but just stretching it to fit a longer time horizon.

Sometimes in order to imagine responses to future eventualities from a strategic perspective, you need to ‘divorce yourself’ from your daily operations and do something different for a while.

‘But my organization Needs Me Now’

The case of ‘They will be no one to do what I do if I take a break’ or even ‘this is a crucial time for my business’. No disputing that your organization may be at that crucial stage where it needs your undivided regular attention, but this will not be so during most stages of the enterprise’s life. A mark of a good leader and a potentially successful enterprise is reflected in the people that work with and below the leader. If your organization cannot exist without you for a week or two, what hope do you have of it succeeding should you suddenly, unexpectedly fall ill?

If your organization cannot survive without you for a short while you may not be doing as good a job as you think in a few crucial aspects of management, primarily; hiring, training, delegation, employee empowerment and succession planning.

Organizations also Need Downtime

An organization is a collection of people and processes around those people. The same way people with their limited attention spans take time out to do something different to refresh themselves, couldn’t the same thing be applied to the enterprise?

Google’s 20% time is a great example of this. Employees get to spend one work day each week doing something completely unrelated to their daily activities. They get to put the ‘what if’ factor to work, exploring projects and possibilities they normally would never get the time to follow through on. That day has been found to be a boon to creativity and therefore beneficial to the individual employees and to the company as a whole.

The Lesson of Downtime

The lesson going forward is that at the individual level, at the level of the entrepreneurial leader and at the full organizational level, at some point sessions, whether structured or spontaneous, should be scheduled as a regular part of the organization’s life. The benefits of such time spent are intangible but positively impact on internal planning, motivation, creativity and innovation.

5 Ways to Make Money Online

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 01:11:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

Making money online is something that is an ever green topic. Usually it might be referred to as “monetisation”. There are several interesting and fun projects online including Facebook where a relevant and pertinent question they face is “how do you make money?” It’s important to keep an open mind in your approach to making money online as the internet is a constantly evolving environment.

In the mean time, here are 5 practical ways to make money online

1. Sell Products Online - E-Commerce

The simplest and most obvious one is to sell a product via an online store. You can set up a store on your website and sell from there. It sounds simple but it’s more difficult than meets the eye. You have to consider things like taking payments in different currencies, delivery, fulfilment of orders, warehousing, managing inventory, customer service and the list goes on. One way around some of these challenges is by selling what is called “info products” or software that can be downloaded online. This way you reduce the challenges of tracking inventory and warehousing. Info products include things like books, instructional videos or webinars.

2. Sell advertising

The other obvious way of making money online is through advertising. Usually you would create a following of some kind via a publication or a mailing list and someone else would pay you to run their ad based on your audience. The primary difficulty here is in creating the kind of audience, that you can convince someone to pay for. Ad networks like Google Adsense and Adbrite also help you in acquiring ads where advertisers pay for who clicks.

3. Affiliate marketing

This is a popular but lesser known option for making money online. It might also be referred to as referral marketing. The concept here is that you get paid per referral you send in. This is actually a very profitable for some people. Essentially they spend their day finding ways to refer persons online to programs such as Amazon Affiliates and Click bank,

4. Offer your services professional in online market place

There are websites which create an online market place for professional services. You have people who want to hire and people who want to be hired in one place. Some of the interesting online marketplaces for services are Guru.com, Elance.com and 99designs.com.

5. Do Work for Pay

This is actually pretty new to me, but I recently learnt of Amazon Mechanical Turks. It is also an online market place for services, however these services might not be professional. They can include simple things like filling out multiple choice surveys and even doing TV reviews. It’s a great way to get paid possibly for one of your hobbies like TV.

Why your Marketing may not be working

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:32:00 -0400

By Marita Greenidge

You’ve been spending lots of money on marketing but for some reason sales are not coming in the door. Why, oh why is your marketing not working? You’ve tried newspaper ads, online ads, you are even trying that “new age” social media stuff, yet nothing!

Don’t despair! You might be making a few mistakes that with some correction will show an improvement to your bottom line.

Here are a few common mistakes entrepreneurs make when it comes to marketing:

You forget marketing is done to drive sales

You therefore spend way too much time (and money) on the aesthetic aspects of your promotional material than you do on ensuring that material is useful. A fancy flash introduction may look really cool but oftentimes it takes too long to load. Your customers don’t want to wait; they want the information right now. The time your site takes to load, they probably disappeared to another site. Potential sale lost.

With printed brochures one can easily neglect content and focus on eye-catching design. Your brochure is meant to inform the customer, not decorate someone’s table or counter. You want a solid call to action with contact details and an explanation of the benefits your product offers. Your goal is to encourage a sale. (As a side note on brochures, many persons tend to make the mistake of listing product features without a clear link to the benefits for the customer. The customer always wants to know “what’s in it for me?” Don’t forget to answer that question.)

You forgot to define your target market

Locals or tourists, business professionals or doctors, older or younger, sports enthusiasts or gardeners? Who does your product most benefit and what are they reading or watching? If you sell hip, chic, trendy shoes then you probably don’t want to place an ad on 900 AM no matter how cheap the rates are. If you intend to cater to the tourist market then your ad would be better placed on barbados.org or in the Nation Explore magazine than in the regular daily paper. If you’re selling art you probably want to get on Corrie Scott’s blog and online magazine. The idea here is to get your promotional material where your target market has a higher probability of seeing you.

You thought social media was the way to go but forgot it meant being social

Social media is great for building relationships which go a long way in encouraging repeat purchases. You heard this so you set up a Facebook & Twitter page. Unfortunately you forgot that someone needed to monitor the pages and interact regularly with fans and followers. You also forgot that posting interesting stuff frequently could keep fans and followers constantly coming back for more. You lament that you don’t get the big deal with Facebook and Twitter; it’s not working for you.

Facebook and Twitter are great ways to get customer insight for product development. If I were an artist considering launching a new suite of digital reproductions, my fans could let me know if I were on the right track with the pieces chosen. If I were a spice producer, I could give away free recipes that used my spices. When users made the dishes I’d encourage them to share their experience with other fans to incite more sales!

These are just a few reasons you may not be getting the bang for your marketing bucks. Hope this helps place you on a path to rapid sales generation. If not, see me for a consult :-).

5 Social Media Mistakes That Could Cripple Your Business

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:47:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

Today, whenever you hear about social media and business, it usually tends to be in a positive light. Tech savvy marketers and entrepreneurs are all evangelizing the benefits of social media. However, I wanted to take a look at the mistakes that could cripple your business.

Shouting at Your Potential and Current Customers

This is one I put high on the list because it is fundamental mistake most people make with implementing their social media marketing. Social media is about conversation and it works best when you are being conversational. The humans beings you are trying to reach enjoy good thoughtful interaction. Using social media to blast persons with your marketing messages and abusing their inbox with a constant influx of sales copy type emails is a quick way to erode the possibility of having a building a long term successful relationship with your customers.

Insulting The Intelligence of Your People

This is following on from the point above. I know you might not intentionally set out insult your audience, however if you are not taking to time to listen and understand your audience you might very likely underestimating their intelligence i.e. their opinions and ideas do not matter. If you are doing that, then you are very likely to insult them as you try to engage them through social media. Insulted people are bad for business.

Communicating in The Same Way Across Networks

This is important because each social network / medium has its own peculiarities. In some cases it might mean there might be a different standard of communications certain types of messages and in others it might mean you have a different type of person interacting with you on the different networks. Whatever it is, its important to understand the difference and communicate accordingly.

SPAM and Automated Messages

Now this is a shortcut, but don't overdo it. Interacting with human like a robot is simply not going to cut it. There are a few situations where an automated message would be extremely helpful to everyone involved. However if you overuse automated messages, it can easily hurt you, and very badly. The worse case with this situation is the social network flags you as a spammer and deletes you.

Thinking of Quantity Over Quality

People new to social media get carried away trying to attract new friends and followers not realising that their current list is where the gold mind is really located. The people already on your list can attract many new followers / followers by sharing with others how great you are. The thing is though; if you are not paying attention to them and making sure they think you are great! It takes just one of them to start the movement! Work smart!

Hope this opens your eyes to managing your social media marketing strategy more effectively.

5 ways to build your brand on a budget

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 18:05:00 -0400

By Kathy-Ann Fletcher

Every day I read about the dire financial situation of our country. Those of us brave enough to continue business in this environment face the task of establishing our brand on a meaner leaner budget. I thought I would share these ideas that would help facilitate establishing your brand on a budget.

Network- There is that dreaded word again. This blog has several articles focused on networking in its offline and online forms. However, one must not underestimate the benefits of keeping yourself and your company’s name in the minds of others who can use or refer your company to family and friends based on the relationships developed with them through networking. This includes social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn which are great ways to establish two-way communication with prospective and existing customers and partners.

Database – A database helps you develop relationships with your customers by emailing them updates about company and products and services. It also allows you to get reviews and suggestions especially from those who would have purchased from you previously. This will help discover gaps in the market and find your niche. Additionally your communications would be more efficient and cost-effective as you would understand exactly what appeals to your target instead of having a trial and error approach.

Use friends and Family – enlist the support of friends and family to wear branded t-shirts, place stickers on cars and any other item that would be viewed by others such as pens, laptops etc. Encourage them to generate conversations about said stickers and by extension your company and its products and gently sell your brand to their circle.

Events – These are a great way to have specials for specific products or service. These can help you become the go-to person for your industry especially if you use these events to share solutions to problems your clients may be having that your company is able to alleviate. Some restaurants may be willing to allow use of their space for such an event in able to develop foot traffic.

Leave behind sales flyer – This helps keep your company in the mind of your prospects long after you have gone without continuing to build the cost for this memory. In certain cases, it can also get new prospects as well, if you are able to encourage clients and associates to display in their spaces. For example, a leave behind flyer for maternity clothes at a gynaecologist/obstetrician’s office has the possibility of being seen by many of that product/services target audience.

These suggestions are to encourage you to keep hope in this economy as there are still great cost-efficient ways to build your brand reputation and recognition in the market. These ways are more targeted and may even work better for driving business to your company than the traditional and more expensive methods.

4 ways to keep customers coming back for more

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:25:00 -0400

By Kathy-Ann Fletcher

I am not a good salesperson. I get nervous and stutter and stumble over my words. A former boss tried to encourage me to be less nervous by saying ‘look at it this way Kathy, 90% of the people you serve you will never see again.’ He used this to encourage me to be bold and unafraid of embarrassing myself in front of someone who I would see regularly. However, this belief leads many to be rude or take customers for granted. The result is a dwindling customer base and a horrible reputation for customer service.

Increasingly we realise that this 90% rule is not true in fact it is the opposite. Reports that almost two-thirds of our business comes from repeat customers indicate that we need to treat each customer with respect and encourage them to return and to tell a friend. If we treat them with scant respect they will tell their friends and all of Facebook and Twitter. I found that these four steps helped me treat my customers with respect and believe they will help with retention and a strong customer service reputation.

1. Be empathetic – customers are sometimes unsure of what they want and a rude and forceful salesperson or business can cause them to walk away dissatisfied. Instead of being rude or impatient give them the time to determine what they want or even gently make suggestions that they may then happily follow if you are not forceful or condescending.

2. Service with a smile – I don’t mean a fake one. It may be hard in the midst of a customer who is behaving emotional and unreasonable. However, you have to think about what that customer will say about his or her experience with your business. They will never mention that they were being unreasonable. Therefore remain calm and do all you can to ease their concerns.

3. Ask Them – Engage your customers to determine straight from them what it is they require from you. Then do all you can to deliver these as best your resources allow. Pay attention to any complaints they may have and suggestions they may have for improving your service. These can be used to generate new ideas and ways to improve your product or service.

4. Provide memorable service – the guy who I purchased my computer from will always get a sale from me. His advice was free and flowing and he went above the call of duty to help me understand what went wrong with my previous computer even after the sale was completed. Service like that leaves customers satisfied and ready to return and share good reviews of your company.

Treat each customer like you want to be treated and you will be sure to have high retention rates.

4 arguments for organic growth in your business

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:39:00 -0400

By Kathy-Ann Fletcher

The competitive nature of business today and the need to acquire loads of revenue quickly can cause companies to use such techniques as mergers and acquisitions to grow their operations rapidly. However, I have observed several of these companies fold because they expanded at a quicker rate than their demand or capabilities could handle.

This leads me to believe that growing at such a quick pace may not be the best thing for all. It may be great for some to grow at a more organic rate. Now what do I mean when I say organic growth? I mean the use of a company’s own resources to expand its operations and business. This may be to expand production due to growing demand or it may be expansion in the attempt to build a customer base. While some companies would buy or sell the business to another enterprise or merge their operations with that of another organisation, I present the following arguments for organic growth.

1. It is a testament to success – Positive organic growth is a good sign that a company is achieving its goals. Other than that it can also serve as an evaluation of how well a company is utilising its resources to achieve sales and revenue targets and new targets may be set due to these reviews.

2. Freedom – if you allow your company to grow organically, you are less restricted in the direction you choose to take your company. Combining with another company means that you may have to compromise on the strategic outlook of your business, whether this is in objectives or tactics to achieve these goals.

3. In gaining investment, funny enough, the investors will often focus more on what you have accomplished organically to determine the potential future of company and whether or not they will invest in the business.

4. Debt – Mergers and acquisitions can leave you saddled in unnecessary and sometimes unmanageable debt. This debt can cancel out the value of the new acquisition or entity.

While it may take longer to achieve certain goals it is best to grow as much as you can organically before taking on huge growth fuelled by mergers, acquisitions or even huge investments within the company. These moves can cause even the most established companies to be turned upside down in terms of change of corporate culture and restructure of the finances. Therefore, it is best to grow organically until you are sure that you are willing to adjust as is necessary and that your company is able to react to the changes it will be exposed to due to forced expansion.

5 Ways To Use SEO In Your Online Marketing

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 23:53:00 -0400

By Corey Graham 2.0

Search engine optimization is not an exact science. Google the big giant in search described it as half art, half science. Once you appreciate this you can have fun with SEO in your online marketing, rather than utter frustration.

What is SEO Exactly?

Let’s imagine you are searching for a particular email. We all know how frustrating this experience can be. Let’s imagine you received an SEO proposal in email and a few days afterwards you need to look back at this proposal. Sometimes it’s easy you to find, and other times its like looking for a needle in a hay stack, especially when you are trying to find it in a hurry. Breathe for a minute, I totally understand. I have been there too.

Usually the problem is that the emails are not “optimised” for the terms you are searching for. You might be searching for “Proposal for SEO” when the title of the email might be something as simple as “Online Marketing Quote” or something like “Here it is”. Worse yet it could have been attached to a long email thread with a subject lin totally unrelated. E.G. 'Are you Going To This Marketing Strategy Conference'. You would never find this email using the search term “Proposal for SEO” because the email does not contain any of those keywords.

This is pretty much how it is on the web also. Your potential customers might be going to one of the popular search engines typing in a search term that actually does not appear on your website! That's just scary when you think of it.

Ideally you want to be landing on the #1 spot for relevant searches. You want that everyone who wants your services sees your site come up as the #1 result.

How be #1!

Here are some tips to make your website more SEO friendly.

Find the Right Keywords

You need to figure out which words your potential customers / clients are using when searching for product or service that you offer. It’s important to note that some keywords are more popular than others and have lots of competition on them. As you will see in tip #5 its might be smarter to take your fight to get to the top to those keywords that are not the most popular but have good search volume and competition on them.

You can figure out these words by using the google keyword research tool, asking your customers, clients and friends what they search for when looking for a service like the one you offer. Your site analytics should also give you a clear indication of which keywords are bringing people to your site.
The key thing is to narrow it down to about 3- 5 words your potential customers are searching for.

Post Relevant Content

Once you know your keywords you can get busy posting content to your website that would come up when people search for these keywords. Its important to make sure you mention the particular keyword about 6 times in the articles.

Post Content Regularly

Search engines give sites which are regularly updated a high search ranking because its most likely that the site is well managed and has the freshest content

Submit Your Website To Search Engines

The top search engines allow you to submit your website directly to them. So instead of waiting for them to come and index your site, you can connect directly to them and tell them when new stuff is on your site. In return they give you a few interesting stats that can be helpful as you aim to make your site more search friendly.

Study The Competition

Go do a search for the term and look at the sites that are performing well. Take sometime and see what they are doing that is different to you.

Exchange Links

SEO specialist rate this as one of the top things to do to get your site rated highly. Search engines place alot of emphasis on how many sites are linking to your website / content. The thinking is that people will post / share links on their site to great content. These links are called backlinks, the more “backlinks” your site has then the better for you! Remember some of the most popular keywords might be 'owned' by sites which have 15 years of backlinks!

I will remind you again that these things are not quite set in stone the web is a dynamic environment with changes daily. Every once in a while some major ground breaking changes that really shakes up things. At the moment the SEO world is waiting to see how Google's latest announcement "Google Instant" will change the face of SEO.