-“In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents. ” – Alexandre Dumas
People are the single most important factory in whether your business thrives or fails. If you are running your business all by yourself then the state of it is all down to you.
Understand that these people, whether they are customers or employees, are not your friends. Take it a step further. If you are the only employee you cannot afford to be friends with you during business hours. Be harder on yourself than you ever would on someone who you are writing a check to each week. People are your problem and the solution to that problem. Understanding people and the rolls that they are to play in your business is part one of building a great business.
Becoming a people person is good for business. Understanding the part that people play in your business is great for business.
How do you become a people person? Two things you must do. Tell the truth. Expect the truth. Always tell your customers and your employees the truth. Truth builds trust and trust builds loyalty. Loyalty both from those who work for you and those who do business with you. Expecting the truth is the first step to always receiving the truth. Once people understand that truth is the number one currency in your existence they will begin to deal in it. If they see your business, your products or services as valuable they will have no real choice. Consider people and their importance to you and your business both in the short term and the long term.
That will be it for today. Please take a moment to bookmark this post and to add me to your google plus.
-“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise” – Ted Turner
Who knows about your business?
Are you getting the word out?
Do the right people know that you exist?
The right people meaning those who could be potential customers. Unless you are independently wealthy your business will not be able to exist long without them. Sure there are those customers who find you and the best thing that you can do is to treat them so well that they will tell others about your business and how it was to deal with. In other words the best way to advertise your business is to get others to do it for you.
This site is a business and the best way to grow it is to have you as a visitor to share my post and to tell others about this site. Then have that process repeat itself until this site is getting a flood of visitors. Those visitors sign up for the services that I promote or click on the google ads at google displays here and in my idea world I am a millionaire in no time. It sounds too easy, but it has actually worked that way for some who have started information based websites. What every your online business is you need to first do a great job at it so that your customers will advertise it.
Next you must advertise to these customers. I know that it seems strange to advertise to people who have already purchased something from you. Just look at it this way, imagine that you are running a restaurant instead the online business. The best customer for any restaurant is someone who has already eaten there. They know the quality of the food, drink and service provided. This customer will welcome hearing about something new that their favorite restaurant has to offer. A new menu item or a great upcoming sale.
The same holds true for your online business. Advertise to the existing customer first. Tell them about something new that your online business has to offer. Go out there and make them a returning customer through deals and email marketing.
Then after you have perfected this you will go out and get more customers through things such as social marketing. In the new world of online business social marketing is a great way to introduce yourself to new customers.
I know that you have a number of questions about what I have suggested. The most important one is why should you do this.
The answer is the only one that matters in the world of business whether it is brick and mortar or online business. You will do this things because you want to make more money. Because money matters. We want to grow our online businesses because we want to increase our cash flow. The only reason to increase our work load is to increase our bottom line.
I encourage you to do what it takes to generate more money. It is not being greedy and even if it was I believe that a great man named Gordon said that Greed is good. Let them call you greedy as long as they end that sentence with millionaire.
Let’s advertise and grow that customer base. Okay, could you take a moment to stumble us on Stumbleupon and to share this post with a friend.
The golden rule for every business man is this: “Put yourself in your customer’s place. – Orison Swett Marden
Who are they?
Where do they come from?
How do I find them?
How do I keep them?
The customers.
The customers.
Did you hear me? The customers. These people are the one thing that no business can do without and all business must seek to add more and more of them.
Your customers are what will make your online business the thing that will provide for you and your family. These people are gold to you and should be treated as such. Your customers have to be first located. Once located they must be treated well and made to feel as welcome as possible. Then these customers must be held on to at all cost. The easiest sale you will ever make is to a repeat customer. They know you and what products and or services you can provide. They will be happy to spend more money with you if you treat them well.
Identify repeat customers. Keep a list of them and stay in contact with them as must as possible.
The customer is king and you are there to serve them. They pay not only the bills that keep your business up and running, but your home as well. Keep that in mind when you obtain a new customer. Never look away from that fact when you are in contact with an existing customer.
In other words keep your eyes on the prize. Your online business grows only because of the customers that you are able to find and keep.
-The first man to the oyster bed gets all the pearls, the next one gets nothing but shells.-
Being first in all things is not always the best policy, but usually it is. Someone was first to come up with the idea of an international auction site to be used by anyone and everyone, Ebay. There have been many copycat sites and some of them actually do a better job of it than Ebay, but because they were first and had built such a head start it will be years before their spot at number one will be challenged.
Being first at doing something leads many customers to believe that because you got there first, that you invented the niche you must be the best at it and for those who wish to compete with you it will be up to them to convince consumers otherwise.
Being first gives your business an advantage. Black Friday is just a few weeks away and look at how many businesses maneuver each year to be the first to open. The first with the biggest sales offer. First to get you into their shop or store. Even if the consumer does not buy anything that day it still gives this business the advantage of setting the price point. Best Buys or Target has set the price. The customer runs all over town checking out other sale prices, with that original price always in mind. After two or three days they are back where they started and they are making a purchase. Running an online business or online store is no different. Reach the customer first with the best deal and they will come back to you sooner or later.
To be first does not mean that you will be a success anymore than scoring the first touch down in a game does, but it does give you an advantage. Find a way to be the first one to offer your customer what they are looking for. Stores spend millions of dollars each year sending out sales circulars. They do this because it has been proven to work. They fill the pages with items from all departments in hopes that the potential customer will see something that they must have and they will have to come by their store. Once they are inside the game is on.
You can and should do the same thing. Find out who your
customers are. Build a list of them. Collect existing names and emails of those whom have done business with you in the past and then be the first one to contact them. Tell them about that item or service you have to offer. Keep doing it. Keep offering invitations for them to come into your store or visit your site and sooner or later you will see your sales increase.
Okay that is it for this post. Please remember to add us to your google plus and to tell a friend about this site. If you do nothing more than to just check out the sponsors of this site that would be a great help. They pay to keep this site going and they actually pay a little even if you only visit and glance their offers.
Thank you for stopping by. I think it is time to get back to
work.
-The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You’ve got to keep working that talent. – Irving Berlin
Some time, maybe not too long ago, you discovered the you had a talent for business. You created an online business and it began to grow. It started to thrive. Things looked good for as far as the eye could see and then for some reason things began to slow down. Your online store is not making as much as it once was and you are wondering why business is not growing.
Perhaps it is in part due to the fact that when you started out you depended upon your talents and drive and somewhere along the line you stopped. Maybe you just wore down. Perhaps you allowed the routine to take over. After all if things are going well why change them. Maybe you decided to take short cuts and some of those short cuts hurt business rather than making things easier?
Maybe when you became successful you forgot about those talents and skills that got you there. Maybe you took risk and now you don’t. Maybe you were the first to try new things and now you are afraid to rock the boat that you built.
You can go on the way that you are going or you could try to recall the person that you use to be.
Try to find that person who built a business rather than the one who babysits an online store.
If you used social media to start your business go back to that and find new ways to grow it.
If you have a list of contacts and customers find new ways to exploit that list. Try email marketing. Dollar for dollar it is an investment that returns over ten to one. There are ways to improve your business that you have never even considered.
Please remember to stumble us on stumbleupon and add us to your google plus. Thank you and good luck with your business.
