Successful Blog

5 Ways to Bring More Customers in the Door

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Jake Oates

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Getting more customers is not just worthy, it is necessary to keep your business alive. In order to enjoy success you have to continually build upon what you have. There are a number of things that you can do to grow your business. With a bit of planning and investing just a little time, you can begin enjoying a steady stream of new customers. Here are a few tips to get you started:

  1. Ask for referrals – Getting new customers in the door could be as simple as asking for them. Ask your current customers to refer you to new customers. Note that you have to be providing satisfactory services to your existing customers before you can begin to expect referrals from them. After every sale or job that you do, ask your satisfied customer if he or she knows of someone else who would benefit from your business.
  2. Penetrate your market – Your existing market can be a great way to increase your business revenue. Getting new customers is great but you have to remember the customers that you already have. Take care of them and they will continue to use you for their needs.
  3. Innovate your products – Find new ways of using your products or services in order to entice new customers. There could be many ways that you could use your products or services. Find these new ways and begin promoting them.
  4. Reach out – Extending your market reach is a great way to find new customers. Opening stores in new places or building a website with an online store could really help you to add to your customer base. Once you have tapped into this new market, choose advertising methods that will reach your target audience.
  5. Think trade shows – Trade shows are an excellent way to promote your products and services and reach new customers. Trade shows draw in people who already have an interest in your market so participating can help you to reach new people. Choose trade show displays that highlight your product or service and work well with your business needs. A good trade show display can have them lined up around the corner just waiting to see what you have to offer.

What ways do you use to engage customers and keep them coming back for more?

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Author’s Bio: This post was written by Jake Oates on behalf of Display Wizard, UK – specialists in design, printing and distribution of display stands for exhibitions, trade shows and events. You can find him at displaywizard.co.uk.

Be Your Own Digital Secret Shopper – 5 Ideas

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Rosemary O’Neill

When’s the last time you called yourself?

Go ahead, pick up your phone right now and call your business line. What happens? Is it a friendly greeting, or is it the third ring of voicemail hell?

On a roughly quarterly basis, it’s great to do a little secret shopping on yourself. It can be very revealing to step into the shoes of someone trying to get in touch with you. And you do want people to be able to reach out to you, right?

Here are 5 quick ideas for your secret shopping project:

  1. Check out your business cards. Do the URLs, email, and phone numbers work? If you have something fancy on there like a QR code, does it work correctly? Has your title changed?
  2. Log out and look at your websites. Go to a friend’s computer and look up your website, your Facebook page, other social accounts…how do they look from the “outside?” Sometimes it’s different than when you’re the account owner.
  3. Call your voicemails. If you’re still using the robot voice that came with your account, change it to something warm and professional. Unless you sell robots.
  4. Try to buy something. Go through the whole buying process for whatever you sell, as if you are a new customer. If it’s an online ordering process, take screenshots at each step, so that you can go back and update things if you need to.
  5. Put in a support ticket. If you offer customer support, put in a ticket using whatever mechanism is appropriate. Post in your own ticket system, send an email from an outside account, and/or ask a friend to Tweet for help (including an @mention of your company).

I gave this list a quick trial run, and noticed that I hadn’t ever changed my personal greeting in the company phone system!

What did you uncover?

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

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Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

How to Attract and Influence Real Fans, Friends, and Followers

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Buddy Hodges

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Friendship and Influence

The inestimable value of friendship and influence is taken as a given here. This post assumes that you already know the “why.” It addresses the “how” in terms of timeless psychological principles which are fundamental to building personal relationships. Of course, commerce and business alliances are also based on personal relationships. We are talking about how to get people to know, like and trust you.

You may have heard these principles in some form before, but they are so important, in my opinion as a social psychologist, that they are worth repeating until we remember to act on them.

Attract Others Like You

Meeting the people you want to connect with involves exposure. If you want to be in the right place at the right time, be in a lot of places. However, it is wise to choose which places are most likely to put you in front of the kind of people you want to know. “Stack the deck” to improve the odds that synchronicity and serendipity will work in your favor. In addition to finding the “right” people, you will be seen in the right context. The mere fact that you belong to a group or a specific social network causes you to be perceived as “one of us.”

Friendship begins with being seen and being noticed. Psychologists know that the old myth, “familiarity breeds contempt,” is false. In fact just the opposite is true. Why do you think politicians invest so much on yard signs? On the internet your personal brand is enhanced by repeated exposure. Post, comment, tweet, like, link, etc. Get your name out there for starters.

Attract and Influence by Investing Attention

To win friends it is more effective to be interested than to be interesting. The best way to motivate people is to find out what they already want and give it to them. Among the things people want most (and don’t already have) is attention. They crave recognition and respect. I suggest that you consider paying, or rather investing, attention.

In a free market economy good listeners are in big demand and short supply. Listening is a technique that is more easily said than done, because we also want to be heard. On social media we “listen” by reading with comprehension and commenting appropriately to show our understanding and interest. We invest attention by re-tweeting and linking.

Recommending or endorsing people (or their content) makes them like you. Sincere compliments are always appreciated, and your recommendation is valuable to them as well. Be authentic. Sincerity is one of the most likeable traits.

Influence Starts with Trust in Them and in You

Trust
BigStock: Trust

Stephen M.R. Covey wrote a book called, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything in which he calls trust the very basis of the new global economy and the essential ingredient for any high–performance, successful organization.

Greg Ferenstein wrote a post on the Mashable.com blog called, The Science of Building Trust with Social Media. Ferenstein quotes Professor Judith Olson of U.C. Irvine, who conducted research on internet trust. Professor Olson notes that “lacking traditional markers of trust, such as voice intonation and body language, when only text is available, participants judge trustworthiness based on how quickly others respond.”

Consider how you feel when someone fails to reply to your email or return your phone call after you leave a voicemail message. You build trust when you reply quickly to comments on your Facebook posts or on your blog. Commentators get frustrated when their comment is “awaiting moderation” for too long. It is risky to leave a “Drive-by” comment on another blog without waiting for a reply to engage in conversation. Although it is essential to be authentic, showing respect for another’s point of view in an online dialog helps create trust.

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Author’s Bio:
Buddy Hodges writes about Social Media Relationships and Social Media for Business at RelatingOnline.com and SocialMediaForBusiness.US Buddy’s Social Media Management business website is at: ProActionTeam You can find him on Twitter as @internetworker

Thank you, Buddy! Great insights on how fuels attraction and influence.

— ME “Liz” Strauss

Is an HP Folio13 Ultrabook as Business Friendly as They Say?

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Would the Ultrabook Fit into My Business Life?

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As I headed down to a final check on the room for SOBCon this year, I also picked up a package delivered to site by HP to me. It was a new HP Folio 13 – offered without strings if I’d take it for a test drive. The poor light-weight little machine was going be “baptized under fire.” I opened it in a hotel room while preparing the last details of the biggest event of my year. And from that event and that hotel, I’d be moving north to CMSExpo

Now I’ve had the Ultrabook with me for about 6 weeks. It’s time to report on whether the HP Folio 13 actually was as business friendly as they said.

5 Business-Friendly Features and How I Experienced Them

When the folks asked me to try the Folio13, I was leery about taking on another gadget in my life. If for no other reason than we’re running out of power strips, I didn’t want something else that needed plugging in.

But I got no pitch. What heard was a personal invitation to see whether I agreed that this UltrabookTM would make small business life easier, faster, and lighter.

Specifically I heard about 5 business-friendly features HP had built in to serve the small business niche. Here’s all 5 features, what HP says about them, and my experience with each.

  1. All-Day Battery Life
    What HP says: With more than nine hours of battery life, mobile business professionals don’t need to worry about jumping through hoops to keep their notebook’s battery from dying halfway through the work day anymore. The Folio’s battery life will last through the entire work day on one single charge.

    My experience: I turned the machine on, did what I needed for up to 2 hours and sometimes only five minutes. The machine was fast, agile, and sleek. The backlit keyboard is intuitive with great feedback. While I was at my event, I let a few people play with it. I’m not sure how long they had the battery working, but I know that I forgot to turn it for four days and still had battery left. Since then, I’ve used it up to 6+ hours (I’ll never learn to watch a clock) and love that I can fly coast to coast without having to worry about battery life.

  2. TPM Embedded Security Chip
    What HP says: Business users who go to great lengths to keep their notebooks secure will love the Folio’s Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip. It acts as an extra layer of security for all of your personal information, including documents on your hard drive and even email.
    My experience: Sounds nice, but from what I can tell. This is slightly better than a bank saying your money is safe. Lots of vendors use TPM and TPms may not be deployed some countries including China, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, where the government might think your data access should be open to them.
  3. HP CoolSense Technology
    What HP says: Whether you find yourself working from a desk or on the road, HP CoolSense technology keeps the Folio’s surface temperature at the perfect level. This technology uses advanced hardware and intelligent software to keep the Ultrabook noticeably cooler.
    My experience: They’re right on this one. It’s not only cool, but it’s quiet. As someone who works in a variety of locations that don’t include desks, a laptop with a cool temperature that isn’t always making noise is a pleasure.
  4. Intel Rapid Start Technology
    What HP says: The Folio’s Solid State Drive (SSD) not only increases speed and reliability, but it also enables Intel’s Rapid Start Technology, allowing on-the-go users to boot up and log on in a snap! The SSD means the Folio13 will be ready to go to work when you are, wherever you take it.
    My experience: I open the lid and within 8 seconds I can type my password and be in — right on the line of the email where I left off! Very different from my experience this week with a friend waiting long minutes for his laptop to start up so that we could discuss a document.
  5. Ultra-slim and ultra-light
    What HP says: The Folio13 makes mobile computing ultra-easy. It’s less than 18 millimeters thin, making it the perfect travel companion for short commutes or long flights. The Folio13 can go anywhere you need it to go, and the nine-hour battery life means you won’t have to lug around extra batteries or charging cords, making it even more travel-friendly.
    My experience: How light is that? Let’s just say I no longer worry out whether to bring my laptop or my iPad. It’s so light I can bring them both! The power pack doesn’t add a huge load.

By the way, unpacking and starting it up for the first time was a breeze, even in a hotel room with hotel wifi to contend with.

I did get caught up short when I was ready to present and realized that the Ultra in Ultrabook meant that I didn’t have the appropriate port to connect to a projector which left me borrowing a laptop to run my presentation. I’ll be finding out whether to get an HDMI cable or an adaptor for that.

In the end, the HP Folio 13 Ultrabook is indeed a business-friendly small business friend. AND I haven’t even mentioned yet, that HP is letting me give one away to someone who buys a ticket to SOBCon NW!! Thank you, HP, for the opportunity times two! (more about that soon.)

Oh, yeah, I hardly ever have to plug it in. I love stories that have a happy ending.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Kick in Peak Productivity Immediately to Win

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Great Weeks Reek of Productivity

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Ten days ago I offered a Productivity Checklist for the best way to end a Friday. Key to the process was setting up things at the end of day — ordering tasks by priority, putting things where you most often use them, and planning the first thing you’ll accomplish on Monday.

Did you try it? I thought perhaps not, but even if you set a plan that ended your Friday neatly and optimized Monday for productivity, take care that you don’t walk in to your workspace and undo all that you’ve set ready to start this week in a great way

Start with Peak Productivity

Being able to kick in peak productivity on a Monday or any other day is function of focus and few steps found in this checklist.

    1. Start your “real work” a hour later on Monday. Most folks don’t want to interact with you first thing Monday. Invest in yourself and your own productivity. Make a commitment reward yourself as soon as you accomplish the simple steps of this checklist. When possible, avoid setting up meetings before 10a.m.

    2. Allow yourself 10 minutes for an office check. Organize everything on your desk. Put things away. Lay out things that still need attending to. Are the things you use most closest to where you use them? If not, move them, so that they will be. Are the files you access most on your computer only one click away? If not, as you work, move them so that they will be.

    3. Allow 10 minutes more to scan your incoming email. Look long enough to know whether a dire emergency is waiting your response. Schedule a time in your calendar to answer the rest.

    4. Make a realistic plan for the week. Plan no more than 3 important tasks per day. Schedule no more than 5 hours of independent work. Leave 1 hour for your social networking investment. You’ll have the other two hours for the inevitable interruptions, phone calls, emails, and meetings that steal time during your day. If you find extra time at the end of the day, you can use it get ahead on tomorrow.

    5. Order tasks what you can get done fastest first. Two reasons support this: It starts you with a quick sense of accomplishment and you’re able to pass on what you’ve finished –which means that someone else can be starting on what was your task one as you move to your task two.

    6. If your habit is to get in early to stop by the water cooler or spend some time on Twitter, keep your investment working for you. Put fences around the time you’ll be spending getting inspired by socializing or you might find that it undoes your performance energy.

The biggest part of kicking in productivity is knowing what we want to do and when we want to get it done. Taking time in the morning to plan a productive day immediately can put us in the mindset to our world flying high for the win!

Whether your workspace is in another building or in your kitchen, you’ll find that peak productivity will kick once you’ve outlined the tasks you want to accomplish in a realistic fashion that fits that time you have to do them. Once you get into the habit, you might find that a 30-Minute Strike Force Strategy may be enough to keep you going.

What’s your best tip to kick in peak productivity immediately?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Work with Liz on your business!!

How Does It Get Better than This?

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CHANGE THE WORLD

What’s in a Question?

Change the World!

You wake up and you find everything you had is gone.
Your computer is crashed. Your house has collapsed. Your beautiful puppy has run away with the local hound.

Everywhere you turn something else seems to be falling apart.
You try to make sense of it.

Your choice between two questions will affect whether you move forward or get stuck more than you might realize.

Will you think …

How do things get any worse?
or
How does it get any better than this?

Whether your world is falling apart or the universe falling into into sync with the life you want to live, things can always get better.

Moving toward the better is raises our positive brain chemistry. That fuels our minds and hearts, keeps us smiling, and keeps us investing in the world as a better place. With that outlook fueling us, we keep building dreams and we keep attracting positive people who want to help us. Without it, we start pushing the positive off.

Just the right question — How does it get any better than this? —
in times of stress or happiness is that powerful.

Try asking yourself that question every day for a month.
See what happens.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there back to your blog and write your own.