One of the best tips I have ever discovered on this matter was to choose your clients wisely.  We have all heard it said, but when you think about what that statement really means it makes you stop for a moment.  If you were to truly choose your clients wisely you could very well be turning away more business than you are accepting.  The checkbook doesn’t always like that.

But here’s the truth of it.  Most times a pain in the butt prospect is an even bigger pain in the butt client that will end up losing you more money in terms of wasted time or unpaid bills than had you not taken them on to begin with.

Here are some warning signs that a prospect will not make a good client.

1)  They ask you to send over a document that you have already sent over at least 19 times in the last week.  This shows a lack of organization.  If your project will need any amount of input from them beware as you may spend a lot of time tracking them down for needed items.

2)  They complain about anyone they have ever worked with and state that they have all “dropped the ball” or that everyone is incompetent.  While this may be true as there is a lot of incompetency in business, there comes a point when someone has to start looking at the common denominator.  It could very well be that the prospect is very difficult to work with and has unrealistic expectations.

3)  They ask for special billing arrangements.  Now, this in and of itself is not always a problem.  After all, there are many salespeople out there who have to provide very specific invoices to their accounts payable department.  However, there are also people out there that need the special arrangements so that they can “balance” all of the invoices coming in.  This may mean that they have debt problems and may potentially have problems paying you on time…or even at all.

4)  They are consistently late to meetings or phone calls.  Enough said here.  If you don’t value your time go ahead and take them on as a client.

Now, these are only guidelines as sometimes with some clever management these types of prospects will turn out to be great clients.  However, you must set very clear and precise expectations before going into a client relationship if you are to be successful with them.

It does no good to know that your target is a male executive in his 40s that enjoys playing golf, eating expensive steak dinners, and traveling if you are spending all of your time and energy putting ads in the local Val-Pak.  That’s not to say that Val-Pak can’t be a valuable marketing tool…but not for the specific target we mentioned above.

Why?  Most male executives in their 40s are not perusing Val-Pak for coupons on their steak dinners.

So what would be a better alternative?  Well, honestly it depends on your product or service.  If it is business related then perhaps a good medium to use would be publications that target c-level executives such as CFO magazine.  If is it not business related then perhaps a more upscale mailing that targets the top 1000 homes in a zip code.  Or perhaps you should rent your own list (infousa.com or referenceusa.com) of those who subscribe to both CFO magazine and Golf Digest and mail a postcard or letter to them.

The key here, as always, is creating a match between your message, your market, and your media.  All 3 hinge on each other and if one is off, you will not land your sale.  As my brilliant husband likes to say, “It doesn’t matter how good your message and your media are, you can’t sell a BMW to a 3 year old!”

Happy Marketing!

Sarah

Then, during a conversation with my mom it hit me.  I told Mom, “I just don’t ever want to forget him.”  You see, as time passes, memories fade, and while that may help with the sadness it can actually be quite distressing to think of forgetting my dad.

Mom’s response to me was, “And he didn’t want to be forgotten.”   While that may not seem all that profound it really struck me how true that is for all of us.  We toil through life to provide for our families so that we might leave a legacy that we will be remembered for once we are gone.

I think entrepreneurs have an extra dose of whatever it is that drives a person to leave a legacy behind.  That drive is what makes them stay up until all hours of the night working when other people with a normal “job” are resting peacefully in their beds.  Then when they do get to bed they toss and turn with all of the ideas and all of the possibilities for the future.  Then they get up early to begin working on their mile long to do list.  They do it for the hope that their wife will be able to stay home, that their children will have a better life, and so that they can make a mark on the world that will remain for generations.

My dad was a passionate preacher, a loving father and a devoted husband.  He built a home for us wherever the church took us.  He taught my brothers and I that no matter what the rest of the world is doing you have to stick to your beliefs.  He taught us not to be afraid of hard work and to always work to improve yourself and your situation.  There were times that he worked 3 jobs to keep us fed and clothed yet he always found time to work towards his dreams.   He had various business ideas that he started from carpet laying, to rentals, to an invention.

Throughout my life I played a variety of sports.  My dad was always on the sidelines pacing until the last minute.  Then, on the way home he would tell me, “You did a great job, but you can do better.”  At the time, it always bothered that he wasn’t happy with me the way I was.  Now, I realize that he was more than happy with me.  He was simply pushing me to never settle and to always grow.

While I may not always be able to remember the sound of his voice, I know that I will never forget his words of encouragement and of wisdom.  I only hope that I can leave half the legacy that he has left for me to follow.

What kind of legacy would you like to leave?  What are your dreams and aspirations?  What are you doing to reach them?  How will people remember you?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions I suggest you figure out what you want out of life and start working to achieve it.

To good memories,

Sarah

In other words if  I recommend implementing direct mail he or she will say that he or she tried that and it didn’t work.  When I get more information on the situation it generally comes down to this situation,  ”We sent out 50 postcards and got no response.”  If only it was that easy.

Think of that strategy in other things in life.

I did 50 pushups and didn’t get in shape.
I ran for 50 minutes and didn’t get in shape.
etc. etc. etc.

This is where context comes into play.  Every marketing strategy, technique, and tactic needs to be analyzed in its own situation.

There are some general rules that can be applied, but the techniques and tactics for the strategies often change and the success rests on a very little point that can influence the success greatly.

What biases or beliefs do you have in your business?  We all have them.  Make a list.  Sometimes these relate to the price you can charge, the service you can provide, the requirements for doing business with you, the access that a client has to you, the terms of business, and more and more and more.

Matt

We have some friends who have recently decided to leave their jobs to start their own business.  They are a couple of months into this new business venture and have just recently shared with us how hard it is to get anything strategic done on the business between taking the kids to soccer practice, remodeling the bathroom, and getting the car worked on–not to mention the day to day business needs such as servicing clients and paying bills.

So what is it that takes a highly productive employee to a struggling entrepreneur?  Where is the disconnect in productivity levels?

It could be that in a job there is normally a much defined job description with a clear outline of what is expected.  In addition, when working in a job, an employee is not usually responsible for both strategy and day to day customer maintenance.  Also, there is the accountability of knowing that your boss or manager will be asking for results.

However, when working for oneself it is easy to get just enough done to get by…thus ignoring the strategy or business building pieces.  It is also a lot easier to let things slip as you have no one holding you accountable.  This is especially true if you have a home office as it is very easy to allow household tasks to consume your work day.

Here are a few tips to help keep you on track.

-It is vitally important to find other entrepreneurs with similar goals to help hold you accountable.  Some call this a power circle.  But regardless of what you call it, you need to have someone who understands what you are working towards to hold you accountable to reaching your goals.

-If working from a home office, set a schedule and stick to it.  Force yourself to get up at the same time each morning.  Take a shower and get dressed rather than just walking down the hall to your office in your Sunday sweats.  This may not seem important, but if you want to motivate yourself to work you must dress the part.  Believe it or not, your attitude is affected by what you wear.  (If you don’t believe me, think about how you feel when you wear your favorite outfit…I rest my case.)  Sunday sweats may be incredibly comfortable, but your mind associates relaxation with them, not productivity.

-Write out a job description for every job you find yourself doing in your business.  Include the tasks that you are responsible for when acting in that job title.  Then, allot time slots for when you fulfill that job.  For example, if 9am is always your Marketing Director job time, then line up a slew of marketing projects for that time and work through them.  If 11am is Customer Service Manager time then take off your Marketing Director hat and switch gears to handle any customer situations.  Compartmentalizing your day will help you give attention to each area of your business and not ignore vital areas.

-Examine your work environment.  How conducive is it to productive and efficient work?  Is it cluttered, thus causing you to spend more time looking for items than actually working?  Is it uncomfortable, causing you to want to spend more time on the couch than in your actual office?  Or maybe it is too comfortable and you find yourself falling asleep.  Are there a lot of distractions like a television, traffic noise, or constant interruptions from employees, children, or pets?  If you said yes to any of these questions, consider revamping your office space to make it easier to be productive.

Implementing just one of these tips will increase your productivity, but implementing all of them will cause a dramatic change in the way you work.  Be careful, productivity can be addicting!

Till next time,

Sarah

You see, the next softball game I went 1 for 4.  If that person would have seen me play THAT game, he probably would have never thought different of me.

Small sample size is a dangerous thing that we as humans fall trap to.  The “we tried ‘that’ and it didn’t work in my business is an example.  How many times did you try it?  In what context.  Did you do it correctly?  Did you do it enough times so that you got enough of a sample size.  There are hundreds of things that go wrong, and just because it didn’t work one time doesn’t mean that it never works correctly.

More on this later…

-Matt

Why am I bringing this up?  Well, for several reasons.  First, it is incredibly easy to fall into this trap ourselves.  And this can be dangerous because we might miss reality and therefore hurt our businesses and/or our lives.

Second, you need to understand this because your customers, clients, friends, prospects, and well—just about the whole world will fall victim to it.  If you bring up an idea that is contradictory to their previous experience they will, at times, discount it without giving it a proper thought or acknowledgment.

Another thing you’ll hear people say is, “we tried that and it didn’t work.”  I’ll address that mistake later, which is closely related to “small sample size.”

Anyway, I highly recommend you study and learn about confirmation bias.  It really is fascinating and a good conversation starter.

Just down the road there was a sports restaurant that was packed.

The first restaurant will no doubt blame the economy for his business being bad.  But what it him?  I’ve been there 30+ times in my life.  Not once has he attempted to get my contact information or given me an offer for a dessert after I was done eating.  If he had gotten several thousand email addresses he might be able to actually put together a promotion to pack the restaurant during the tournament.

Something that gave away prizes for the best outfit, people who picked the best brackets, people who chose the score correctly, and on and on it could have gone.

But he has no client database that I am aware of.  He just hopes that people come into his restaurant, instead of proactively scooping up all the people who do come in, and ensuring that they come in again and again by developing or building a relationship with them.

There is a famous phrase out there uttered by some politician or prognosticator or political analysts.  It reads, “Its the economy, stupid.”

In THIS case, it wasn’t the economy.  It was just someone being ignorant.  And being ignorant leads to stupidity…or at least in this case it did.

-Matt

Well, as a consumer it doesn’t take long to catch on that both of them are making the exact same claims and that oddly enough most of their survey data sounds the same as well.  So after years of competing on taste Burger King came up with a clever turn.

They are competing on size.

Now, don’t get me wrong, they are not the first to think of this.  Hardee’s has done this on many occasions.  What I found clever was the way they did it.  They had 2 guys trying to figure out where to go for lunch.  One suggests Burger King and the other balks at the idea and suggests McDonald’s instead claiming, “I have these tiny hands.”  The implication of manliness being tied to the size of the burger one eats is quite obvious.

Now, the key thing here is what Burger King did, knowing that in reality that the competition on taste is old and most consumers are tired of the claims.  Burger King created a new category.

Now, I’m sure most of us don’t have the marketing budget of Burger King or McDonald’s so how does this translate into our businesses?  There are “stale mate” competitions in most industries.  So, one can either keep attempting to win out in an endless p***ing contest, or one can create an entirely new category to compete in and blow the competition away.

Some believe it is a status in business to achieve.  It provides a feeling of exclusivity and doing any sort of  marketing would be seen as tainting this “club” of sorts.  Members of this club focus most of their attention on going to networking meetings with the goal of building  a power circle that will refer to them on a regular basis.  In order to make a strategy like this successful, one must constantly be in front of those with the power to refer.  Referrals in this strategy can ebb and flow depending upon the whims of whichever networking groups the business professional belongs to.

There are others that believe the only way to achieve a by referral only business is to have a strategic marketing plan.  These business professionals build relationships with past clients and referral partners through various marketing methods such as newsletters, e-zines, cards, letters, small gifts, and more.  Through systematic means, they are able to obtain predictable and track able referral results.

Now, what about word of mouth marketing?  It can be a great tool, but I caution you that on its own it is very dangerous.  Why?  Because of the telephone factor.  What is the telephone factor?  The telephone factor is the result of every game of telephone we ever played as a children.

You remember how someone would start with one phrase and by the time it made its way around the circle it came out completely different? Well, when one depends upon word of mouth advertising as their only marketing tool they are in a sense tempting the fates of the telephone game.  Someone is bound to completely wreck your message.  It is the nature of humanity.

But is word of mouth advertising completely useless?  No, but it should be the by-product of your marketing and should be delivered in a carefully crafted message time after time so that the person trying to help you out knows exactly what to say about you.  Otherwise it can do a great deal more harm than aid.

Those who believe word of mouth advertising and being by referral only are a realistic alternative to a well thought out marketing plan that is strategically implemented are losing out on a great deal of potential profits.  Much like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand does not make it invisible, saying that you are by referral only does not make it so if you do not have a strategy to build those referrals.