Serving Valued And Essential Customers Is Key To Business Success

Share your knowledge about your product or service with your customers. You will find that teaching customers will help you learn how best to build and manage your business.

Imagine yourself as the customer desiring to purchase a wedding cake. Your first step may be to visit a local bakery who you know bakes cakes and other goodies. The bakery employee listens to your request for a wedding cake. He or she may show you pictures or actual cakes they produce and give you a price for each. You choose a cake, and arrange for delivery or pick-up. You leave the bakery shop. The visit was professional and courteous. You will probably receive a satisfactory wedding cake. You might return to this bakery again the next time you need a wedding cake or any other kind of baked goodie……or you might not. There was no particular connection in this meeting and transaction.

Now choose a bakery that specializes in wedding cakes. Perhaps when you walk through the doors you immediately feel as though you are at a wedding reception. The shop is decorated with several different themes of weddings. There is nothing but wedding cake samples everywhere. You can take a sample home with you if you like. This shop is perhaps a family-owned business for more than 100 years. Most of this family is unmatched in their knowledge about baking and wedding cakes specifically. The owners have authored or co-authored cake cookbooks and maybe even own some patents related to utensils used for baking cakes.

If you express interest in their wedding cakes, whoever waits on you will most likely ask you about the specific wedding plan. They will inquire as to your preferences for taste and texture. They will show you a variety of wedding cake themes. When you make your choice they will also offer a selection of other items or services associated with weddings, wedding cakes, wedding receptions. They may have copies of books they authored or co-authored or they recommend about weddings in general and the wedding cake. When you leave their bakery, they will hand you a business card with their contact details and website address in case you have more questions when you get home.

Visiting this bakery was a wonderful and gratifying experience and you will have the same sort of feeling when you visit them online. Their web site will be filled with helpful information and beautiful photographs of wedding cakes they produce.

This type of wedding cake bakery is a prime example of a business that embodies the single most important principle that has fueled the success of many business owners. The principles can be applied to any type of business. The central message is “connect with your customer.” Love, cherish and listen to your customers. Teach your customers everything you know so you can learn from your customers how to serve them better. You can be satisfied that you are offering quality services or products that customers truly need, enjoy, but above all “want.”

If you are truly interested in building a successful business, there should be no one more important to you in your business life than your customers. Connect with your customers via the internet, via publications and articles, via television, magazines and newspapers. Remind yourself that serving valued and essential customers is your number-one priority and is the key to a successful business.

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Good Communication Is Essential For Your Home Business

1) The most important factor in a successful home business is:

a) Marketing Plan

b) Sales Copy

c) Web Site Layout

d) Customers

2) My communication skills are:

a) Poor

b) Average

c) Good

d) Excellent

Every aspect of your work at home business relies on your communication. Your business plan; your sales copy; your e-mails; your web site; your phone calls; your marketing plan; AND your customers. How important are your patrons in your plan for work from home success? How eager are you to meet and exceed the needs of your clients in your online business or home business? How willing are you to improve your communication skills?

Your client's requirements are the same whether you have a work from home business, a brick and mortar store or an internet venture. They need to trust you and good communication can develop that credibility. Your number one goal is to create a long term association with your customers. And the way to accomplish that purpose is to convey through your messages that your clients are your most important asset.

Communication is exchanging information between people. The key ingredient to good interaction is that the receiver must understand the intent of the speaker. To increase your opportunity for success, you will need good communication skills.

An online internet store or a home business provides an opportunity for unlimited amounts of interaction with your customers. They will call you with questions about your products, your shipping costs, your delivery times. They will call you with a complaint, a concern, or a cancellation. You must always be ready to use your communication skills to enhance your relationship with your clients.

Here are four ideas for improving your communication skills. These concepts can be applied to the written word or to the spoken word. They can be applied to your internet store, your home business or your personal life. The key ingredient is to put yourself in the place of the recipient. How would you respond to the meaning of your words?

1) Be Reassuring

The intent of your words is to give confidence to the individual that you are communicating with. You can open wide the road of trust if you articulate that everything will be okay. Think about situations where you were involved and you were unsure about the outcome. How did you feel when you received reassurance? When it was missing, how did you respond? Give your customers the reassurance that they need and they will trust you.

2) Be Encouraging

The purpose of your communication is to make the listener feel better while you are interacting with them. Give your clients optimism with your written or spoken words. Have you ever dealt with frustration? Did you receive encouragement at that moment? What happened when it was missing? Put yourself in the position of your listener. Use words that encourage and they will rely upon you.

3) Be Respectful

The goal of your message is to convey to your audience that they are an important asset. Scenario #1:You are on the phone talking with a representative of a company that you are considering doing business with. The individual makes you feel that you are important to the success of their company. Will you to do business with them?

Scenario #2: You are on the phone with another representative and the tone of the person’s voice conveys annoyance. Will you give them your hard earned money? Communicate high regard to the person that you are speaking with or that you are writing to. Treat your listener as if the success of your home business is dependent upon them. They will become a life long customer.

4) Be Helpful

The aim of your information is to articulate an attitude of eagerness to satisfy your customers. Communicate this willingness to go the extra mile with your spoken and written words. How do you feel when a sales person does everything they can do to make you a satisfied customer? How do you react when the sales person rushes through the transaction? Where will you take your business? Go above and beyond the call of duty and they will tell their friends about you.

Your communication skills contribute to the success of your online business or your home business. Every positive aspect that you bring to your venture will pave the road to your prosperity for making money online or at home. What will YOU do to make your work at home business successful?

"Your own resolution to success is more important than any one thing."

9 Essential Items Your Website Copywriter Must Know About Your Business BEFORE Writing a Word…

…And if he’s not asking, you don’t want him writing for you.

It’s pretty much a given…when you hire a copywriter for your newly designed web site, your getting someone with above average writing skills. But the best copywriters are more than merely good writers. They are expert interviewers, researchers and marketers. Before sitting down to compose those lead generating or sales gems, they must completely understand all the benefits of your product or service, your goals for the project, what makes your customers tick and what distinguishes you from the competition.

If your copywriter is not covering these topics and asking these questions before he begins writing your copy, you will not get the biggest bang for your buck.

Website copywriting components:

· Project Objective

Is the purpose to make a sale, educate your customers, raise market awareness of your product or service, enhance your company image…or perhaps , internally, excite your sales force, improve company esprit de corps, build company loyalty?

· Target audience:

Who is the customer to whom we are writing? What are their sex and ages? What jobs they hold? What about their social status and economic circumstances? Where are your customers geographically concentration? What motivates them? What if anything do they already know about your product/service?

· Product description:

What are all the product’s features; its specifications, components, its manufacturing and delivery process? What efforts have een made to market it to date?

· Customer benefit:

Why should the customer buy your product or service? Can you quantify savings in time, money and/or effort? What is the relative importance of this product/service to the customer?

· Support for benefits claims:

What proof is available to support your product/service claims; in the form of test data, focus group reports, testimonials? We are looking for specific, quantifiable facts here, not subjective generalities.

· Competition:

Who are your competitors in the marketplace? How can I get an objective assessment of their features and a comparison to your product or service?

· Creative consideration:

What are the limitations and constraints for the promotion; such as budget, schedule, and overall requirements?

· Distribution:

How do you intend to market this promotion? What is the planned marketing campaign…ad runs when and where, brochure distribution and mailing plans?

· Unique Selling Proposition:

What specifically makes your product/service unique in the marketplace? What separates you from the competition?

Copyright Alan Richardson

7 Essential Ingredients For A Thriving Home Computer Repair Business

Everyone wants to work from home these days. Who wants to commute to an office and sit in a cubicle when you can be just as productive in your own home wearing what you like without having anyone looking over your shoulder?

Whether it’s in business for yourself or over a high speed connection to the office – work at home is hot – and that’s a lot of work to be had for you as an IT entrepreneur.

But before choosing a logo for your Superfixit5000 van it’s important to get down to some fundamentals and proper planning (the logo bit does come – all in good time). Like any other business a proper plan, some research and the ticking of a few key boxes are what will get your venture off the ground and flying high. Here are just a few:

1. Know your market – home users (duh!), but seriously. Who are they? What do they do? The corporate employees will have their own remote support so you’ll be targeting the entrepreneurial types (like you) and recreational computer users.

2. Know what to expect from them – what problems will they typically encounter? What should you get up to speed on so you can diagnose and fix their issues quickly and efficiently? More often than not it will be spyware related – expect to see a lot of that.

3. Know your competition – Who is doing the same, how are they doing it, how much do they charge, what services do they provide and how do they advertise? Do they have special promotions or bundles?

4. Professionalism is everything – you need professional looking work orders, invoices, website, business cards and flyers that make people take you seriously.

5. Have a strong brand – Now it’s time for the logo! Have a consistent brand that identifies you, sticks in people’s minds and differentiates from the competition.

6. Get connected – who can help you build and grow your computer repair business? Where are the best suppliers, can you outsource and project manage the services you don’t provide yourself? Can you quickly refer people to non competing complimentary businesses to fulfil their needs and charge referral/finders fees?

7. Plan for growth – do this from the beginning. A business plan is a must and you need to be prepared to deal with having to get help when there’s too much work and budgeting to cover quiet periods. Having a growth and investment strategy is what will take your business to the next level and ensure you never have to take orders from anyone else ever again.

Home users and small businesses are in dire need of friendly capable computer professionals to see to their IT needs. To really get the most out of all the potential business you need to put on your entrepreneur cap and think in terms of opportunity – at every opportunity.

When you’re in someone’s home or office looking at their computer problems you’re more than just a fix it person. They’re going to ask you for advice on their IT strategy and will expect you to have answers. Even if they don’t ask, you are guaranteed to see disasters waiting to happen and potential improvements – so think like a consultant and don’t be afraid to make recommendations.

The success of your enterprise will hinge largely on people’s perception of you and how you run your operation. Word of mouth advertising and recommendation is your bread and butter. Go out of your way to overdeliver and meet their needs (including the ones they don’t know about) with a well thought out professional service.

To do that you need a plan and a roadmap – invest the time early to build a solidly founded home computer repair business and you’ll never have to work for anyone else again.