In today’s economy, it is critical to know what your Customer’s really want, because you can go off in a direction that could be wrong.

As businesses individuals, we all think we know what our customers or clients really want.  Unfortunately, what we think they want isn’t necessarily what they really want.  In fact I have a chapter in my book, “How to Get Customers to Call, Buy and Beg for More,” about how to get your customers to tell you what they want and how they want to receive it.

With the Economic situation being what it is today, it is very important that you know this, because you could be misdirecting your Budget in an area that won’t be productive for your growth and profits.

I’m always mentioning in my Weekly Tips the importance of collecting your customers email address.  It is the most cost-effective way that you have to communicate with your customers and clients.

You can do a mailing with a few questions.  One of the most effective methods I know of to gather information from your customers is to utilize an online survey service such as “SurveyGizmo”, SurveyMonkey, etc. that will help you track and analyze your results.

As in all types of surveys, make sure that you include some open-ended questions and also be careful how you word the questions so that you don’t influence how they answer the question.

I have found that whenever I do a survey, one of the questions I always ask is, “What are the problems and/or issues you are having, and what would you suggest I do to help you solve your problem?”

Again, we go thru periods where we ASSUME that we know what our customers and clients want, only to find out that we were going in one direction and our customers in another.  With a system set up where you are in constant communication with your customers, you can be on target and know their needs and wants consistently.

So if there is anything you want (no matter how wild) that I have not been giving you, let me know by leaving a comment in the "Comments" box below, or send me an email at ken@kenvarga.com .

Technorati Tags: customer survey, customer surveys, Growing your business

Online newsletters and ezines are one of the most cost-effective tools you can use to market your business. Customers and prospects who subscribe to your newsletter mailing list are giving you the opportunity to establish a relationship with them. That is very important.  It gives you the opportunity to develop a relationship with them. Once they opt-in to receive your newsletter by email, you can build that relationship, establish trust, and nail down sales by sending the newsletter regularly. The more subscribers you get the more sales you’ll land.

How can you get people to subscribe to your online mailing list? Better yet, how can you get a lot of people who don’t even know you yet to subscribe to your ezine, thereby asking you to send them information on a regular basis about your business? In my last blog article I gave you some ways to build that list. 

Here are several more ways that I thought of since, to accomplish that feat without spending bucket loads of money on marketing.

1.  Ask people to subscribe to your newsletter mailing list when they complete a purchase. This is done at the time of purchase.  You should train your sales people to ask for it.  Yesterday I had a hamburger for lunch at a restaurant called, “The Fox and The Hound.”  When I received the check, my waitress mentioned that they have a gift of $5.00 the next time I visit if I would complete a form and allow them to communicate with me via email. You can do the same thing. Just because someone bought a product from you once doesn’t mean they’ll remember to come back the next time they need something that you sell. To get that customer back again, be sure you capture the customer’s email address as part of the sale and include a checkbox on the form letting people indicate that they’d like to be included on your mailing list.

2. Ask current subscribers to forward your newsletter to their friends. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to grow your newsletter list. Remind your readers to spread the word about you by including a note in every newsletter asking them to please forward the newsletter to their friends who would be interested in reading it. Be, sure, too, that there’s a prominent link to your subscription page in every issue of your newsletter. I use a “Forward to a friend” link at the bottom of my Marketing Tip of The Week newsletter.  Sometimes I also ask you within the body of the newsletter, near the end of the article, to forward the newsletter to others.

3. Promote your newsletter at seminars and talks. If you give seminars or talks on your area of expertise, be sure to let your audiences know that you have a newsletter and what the benefits of subscribing to the newsletter are. And don’t forget to include your newsletter subscription link in your handouts. I do this whenever I speak at Chamber of Commerce’s in my state, and also whenever I speak at a seminar.

4. Promote your newsletter in your 30-second commercial. Many organizations, such as your Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Clubs, give members a few seconds at the beginning or end of meetings to introduce themselves and their businesses. End your "commercial" with an appeal to visit your website and sign up for your newsletter. Remember to tell them how valuable it is to them and how they will benefit from it.

5. Offer a free gift – If it’s on your website, make it downloadable of course, so you have no delivery charges — to those who sign up for your newsletter. To simplify the delivery process put a link to your freebie in the thank-you note you send to new subscribers. And, just in case any of those new subscribers pass on the link to their friends who haven’t subscribed, put a subscription box on your free offer page, too. Lead it off with a note that says "Not a subscriber yet? If a friend sent you a link to this page, sign up for your own copy of (your newsletter name.)" If your business is offline, you can also offer a coupon as an incentive for them to visit your establishment.

6. Get a friend in your industry to promote your newsletter to their mailing list — then promote the friend’s list in yours. This is called a JV, Joint Venture.  It works for both of you.

7. Send a postcard mailing to targeted mailing lists you’ve built from collecting business cards or from the newspaper. I have found post cards to be the lowest-cost way to build my list.  Use the mailing to solicit newsletter signups. To get the recipients to take action, offer a free gift (a downloadable product) to people who subscribe by a specific date, or offer a coupon for when they visit your establishment.

8. Never stop soliciting subscribers.  This is the most critical step of all.  I’ve found over the years that individuals quit too soon.  Keep at it and you will succeed. Also, email addresses change, and people’s email addresses become undeliverable. People’s information needs or product needs change, and they unsubscribe. Keep your list fresh and growing by continually promoting your mailings.

I hope these additional suggestions help you grow your list and make it very profitable.

Technorati Tags: build email list, customer list, grow email list, Growing your business, postcard marketing

This is a very interesting question.  It is from a network marketing subscriber. The questions is: ”I’d like to go to the Ambassador Level in my company in the next 3 months.”

Assuming that you ’re following the selling and recruiting training that your parent network company provides, here are some things to keep in mind and apply that would help you grow rapidly.

1.  Remember, everything you do in your business is about benefits…what’s in it for your prospects, customers, and distributors?

This means that your prospects, customers, and distributors need to experience the promised benefits of your products to become prospects, remain customers, grow into distributors, and remain distributors.  This means that, as much as possible, in all your interactions, you should be making sure that the person you are interacting with is experiencing one or more benefits of the products. 

So for instance, when talking with a prospect, help them imagine how their life will be better after using the product.  One of the best ways to do this, as I’m sure you know, is to give them free samples.  When talking with a customer or distributor, make sure they are using the products as often and the way they should.  Why?  Because if they don’t use the products correctly, they are unlikely to experience the benefits.  And once they stop experiencing the benefits, you lose them.  This leads us to the next point…

2.  You must follow up and keep the awareness of the benefits alive in the experiences of your contacts.  You can do this in a couple of ways:

a. When you talk with a prospect to whom you’ve given a sample, or to a customer, or to a distributor, you can ask “So how is it going for you with such-and-such a product?” Don’t be afraid that if you ask they will discover that they don’t like the product and will stop buying.  The fact is if they don’t, they will stop sooner or later anyway.  So it is only to your advantage to find out as early as possible how they are doing with the product, so you can fix any problems that are starting.

b. Another way is to collect success stories of using the products and pass them on to all your contacts.  For instance, you can give away a free prize for the person who submits the best success story of the month. Or you can make them “famous” by publishing their story in your newsletter. These stories remind readers of the benefits of using your products.

3.  You must have an “Amazing Referral Program” that you have created to get your customers to become advocates of your business, and refer everyone they know.

In the prior Blog post, I went over a shortened version of what an, amazing referral program should be about and the way you ask for those referrals. So review that blog over and over again, and create your own, “Amazing Referral Program.”

4.  Now comes what I refer to as my “Visualization Technique.”  I’m a firm believer that we are what we think.  If we think negatively, negativism will follow us.  So believe that you’ve already achieved the Ambassador Level, and visualize what it will do for you both financially and also personally.

For example, if you believe that achieving this level, will provide the finances for purchasing a 6,000 square foot home, then visualize yourself living in it and experience the feelings you will get when you are living in it.

5.  Since you are selling health-related products, join organizations or volunteer your time in places where you can meet people who have health issues and who may be able to take advantage of your product.  You have to be careful here with the rules of the specific organization about whether you could talk about your product, etc.  But the idea here is to find out where your prospects are and go there.

6.  Build strong relationships with your customers, prospects, and distributors.  With strong relationships you have a strong business.  Two of my books can help you with this. One is called “The Secrets To Creating Lifelong Customers”, and the other is called “Up The Loyalty Ladder”.  They can both be found on my website at www.kenvarga.com.

The important ingredient to building strong relationships is to know what’s important to your people besides just the business, and to become a resource for them regarding those important things.  So for instance, if one of your distributors often needs babysitting services, you can send him news clippings of things related to babysitting, or keep your eyes open for good babysitters, or offer to babysit in an emergency.  Helping them with things that are important to them builds and deepens relationships.

7.  Lastly, you need to know your particular numbers.  In other words, you need to know how many people you need to contact to yield how many prospects.  How many prospects will yield how many customers?  How many customers will yield how many distributors?  How long does a distributor remain a distributor? Etc.

When you know your numbers you are able to keep track of whether or not you are on target to your goal of Ambassador.  Your numbers will tell you what activities you need to improve on in order to reach your goal.

If you execute the above steps well and diligently, you will reach your goal in the shortest time possible.

Technorati Tags: Getting Referrals, getting to "Ambassador" level in your network marketing, growing a network business, Growing your business, growing your network marketing business

In this post I’m going to continue my discussion on developing niches.

As I mentioned in my last post, before going into a new niche you must try to confirm as closely as possible that the numbers will work for you. In general, you should satisfy yourself that you will have positive answers when you ask the following questions:

1. Are there enough qualified buyers in the group you are considering?

2. What would it cost you to make a sale? How much profit would be left over after the sale? Is that sufficient for you?

3. Is this a growing market or a shrinking market? You want to get into a growing market/niche.

4. Will you have a competitive advantage in this niche? Can you create one?

5. How hungry are prospects for solutions in this niche?

These are some preliminary questions you should answer before making a decision to pursue a niche. And here is a very personal question you should also ask, maybe even before the others I just posed: will you enjoy working with the people in that niche? Can you become their friend? If not, I suggest you go on to another niche where you can both enjoy the people you work with while making the money you want.

Technorati Tags: Growing your business, Niche Development