Client Magnets Official Blog

Posts Tagged ‘customer service’

Operating your own business requires an intensity and creative energy someone employed in a regular job can’t comprehend. Because that’s true, you may have reached a point when you need to start hiring people to help get things done. Here’s a strategy for hiring the right people for the tasks that get in the way of growing your business.

You may have been handling the details of your personal and professional lives on your own for so long that you don’t recognize when it’s time to start outsourcing. Let me give you an example of how outsourcing one routine task could free you to focus on building your business.

Let’s say your favorite dry cleaning firm is an hour round trip from your office. What could you be doing in that hour that creates more business, instead? When you multiply the time away from business tasks times your standard business fees, you begin to understand why delegating that kind of routine task can improve your bottom line.

Maybe your routine tasks are business related—answering phones, shuffling through email or making travel arrangements. Whatever it is that’s keeping you from actually focusing on finding new customers or creating products, it may be time to let someone else do it.

Your greatest need may be as simple as being able to rest once in awhile.  You maybe trapped in the cycle of working long hours, late into the night and every weekend. Wouldn’t it be more productive to work with a team and have them take over tasks that don’t require your personal attention, and actually balance work and rest?

Finding the right team to take over things that keep you distracted from work can make a huge difference. Decide what kind of help would do the most good right now. Do you need a personal assistant to handle dry cleaning pickup and delivery or a virtual assistant to schedule your newsletter?

For each business owner, it’s something different. But at some point, it isn’t optional if you want your business to grow. Insisting on doing everything yourself is a sure-fire way to keep your business small.

Finding skilled team members to lighten your load can surprise you in another way. You’re going to find there are things you simply aren’t suited for; for instance, you might slog through ironing your own clothes but why focus all that effort on something that can be outsourced to someone who does it well?

So consider where your team would do the most good. Decide what can be outsourced and then find people with the right skills, whether virtual or local. Remember, it doesn’t matter if the team member who posts articles to your website is in Australia or anywhere else in the world, so long as they do a great job and free you to do the things you need to do.

You want to outsource tasks to free up time, to grow your business or simply to get enough rest.  Start thinking about hiring a team to support you in your business. What kinds of things would make your life simpler, allow you to focus on your business or find some balance?

Once that’s clear in your mind, you’ll know who to look for and what kind of skills they need.  Then you’ll be on your way to building a great team. And that team will make all the difference in your life, your business and your peace of mind.

You’ve made a sale.  The customer’s credit card has been approved, you’ve booked their seat or ordered their product, and you’ve added your new customer’s email address to your newsletter list.  You’re already tallying your net profit in your mental bank register, and you’re resting comfortably in the pleasure of another sale well-done.

Not so fast…

If there is any time lapse between the closing of the sale and the delivery of the customer’s product or service, at some stage you will need to address the “buyer’s remorse” phenomenon.

If your customer falls under the weight of buyer’s remorse, he or she might have feelings of guilt associated with a high price tag, credit extension, or disapproval by others.  The client might begin to fall off of their “purchase high” and start to consider their new, reduced spending power; or they might wonder if they should have done more research or waited for a better, newer version of your product or service.

Your job is simple:  you must keep buyer’s remorse from ever showing its face…by using a Stick Strategy.

A Stick Strategy is simple.  It involves offering a gift that fulfills your customer’s need for instant gratification, and then staying in touch with them to reinforce the benefits of their decision, until they receive the product or service that they purchased.  In other words, remind them regularly that they’ve made a good decision.

Example of a High-Cancellation-Risk Sale:

A motivational speaker offers two types of events:  a 1-day workshop and a 2-day weekend seminar.  She starts marketing and taking reservations for the 1-day workshop only 6 or 8 weeks in advance.  But for the weekend event, she starts accepting bookings up to 4 months ahead of time.

Her customers who book 4 months prior to the 2-day event are much more susceptible to the effects of buyer’s remorse.  A lot can happen in 4 months – people move, their family situations can shift, their employment might change – and that might prompt them to eliminate her seminar from their new schedule.

It’s especially important that this business owner stays in contact with her weekend seminar customers during those critical 4 months – to make sure that those clients remain interested and on-board, without regrets.

Follow these simple steps to keep your waiting customers on-board:

• Immediately following your customer’s booking, make a good-will gesture (e.g.  a digital report, an insider preview of your service, a free sample, coupons to use in the meantime, or anything that will reinforce their spending decision as a good one).

• Keep a list of people who have signed up for one particular service, and use that list to send industry tips, answers to commonly asked questions, or special bonus offers throughout their wait – and be sure to reference the date of the upcoming service in every piece of correspondence.  This will keep their interest piqued, their energy levels high, and will shoo away that bothersome remorse bug.

• You can also send a friendly note part-way through their wait. A simple “Hello, can’t wait to meet you at the conference,” or, “Here’s the seating chart and your nametag.” can boost their obligation to the commitment that they’ve made.

• Keep customers-in-waiting involved. Maybe you’re thinking about making an addition to your service – send a note asking for their opinion on the change.  Or, ask them for feedback on the booking process.  In short, make them feel that their opinions are important.

Maybe you have felt buyer’s remorse yourself.  If you have, think about how much better you might have felt if you’d gotten a free gift right away, or if someone had contacted you to ask for your input.  Would you have been more willing to “Stick?”

Make your customers stick with you…all it takes is a healthy dose of communication and a little dollop of good-will glue.

Bernadette Doyle created Client Magnets Ltd to help self-employed people solve one of their biggest business problems: attract a steady stream of clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Remember the telephone conversation?  In this, the cyber age, the telephone conversation has become, for most, an antiquated form of communication.  However, that doesn’t mean that it holds no value.  To the contrary, its value is so great that often the ring of the telephone could be mistaken for the cha-ching of a cash register.

If someone takes the time to call you on the phone, they’re at least somewhat interested in what you’re selling; they want you to convince them that their positive opinions about your product are correct; and they want you to dispel their fears.

People call on the phone for one of two reasons.  Either they want you to convince them to buy, or they want to cross-examine you to satisfy their own curiosities.

Either way, when you answer the call, it’s up to you to take gentle control with questions that will work to convert:

• If someone calls and indicates that they are somewhat interested in your product, try to refrain from spewing a rehearsed list of features and benefits.  They can find the facts on your website, or in your brochure.  They are calling because they want to be nudged in the direction of purchasing (whether they know it yet or not).

• The person asking questions is generally the party who holds the most control.  If your caller starts with a question, politely indicate that you will gladly answer that question if they will allow you to check some things with them first.  This is called a “staller” or a “framer.”  This puts the “ball in your court” and you can ask them the questions that will direct the conversation in a conversion direction.  You will rarely experience success if you spend the phone call answering questions that are being continuously fired at you.

• Ask, “What was it that attracted you to the program?”  Listen carefully and make note of these early “likes.”  Answers to this question will reinforce the caller’s belief in your product, and will give you valuable feedback for future marketing efforts.  Be sure to reference these points again later, reinforcing that your caller’s instincts as correct.

• Ask the caller what kept them from booking directly from the internet.  The answer will give you the opportunity to dispel fears and calm misgivings about your product.  You can also use this information to adjust your marketing approach for the future.

• Begin questioning about what the prospect found appealing, then move to questioning about misgivings, and end with reinforcing the positive.

• Remember to only convince prospects that your product is a perfect fit for their problem if it truly is.  Selling under false pretenses is not only sleazy, but it won’t work to build, or forward, your good reputation.  It doesn’t matter how great your product can be for the right person, the wrong person will never give it 5 stars, a thumbs-up, or a good review.

• Make a list of questions that you would commonly use during telephone conversations.  This will eliminate stumbling, awkward silences, and nervousness when dealing with callers.

As we move further into the information age, fewer and fewer sales are booked over the telephone.  Nevertheless, when a phone call does ring in, it’s better news than ever.  People are only picking up the phone as a last resort for being convinced.

When handled correctly, telephone calls can significantly impact your conversion rates…for the better.  People ask for information, and give information, because they want to hear that they’re right about their likes, and that they have nothing to fear from their misgivings.

Open up that phone line.  Take control of the questioning.  Gently convince, dispel, and reinforce.  Use the call to turn that prospect into what they’re secretly hoping to be – a client.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Going through the work of identifying your target audience, really getting to know them and developing products to meet their needs can be very rewarding. If you want it to be financially rewarding, you’ll also need to learn the art of making repeat sales. Repeat sales generate eighty percent of the profits for a successful business. When you’re ready to move beyond the one-time transaction, here are some ideas for mining the gold of repeat business.

Breaking the “Find New Customers” Cycle
It’s difficult to watch someone work very hard to build a business, only to leave the additional income from repeat business on the table. That’s what happens when you’re constantly chasing new customers and making one-time sales to them, rather than offering new products and services to existing clients.

If you think about it, it’s actually easier to sell a product to a satisfied client, isn’t it? So it doesn’t make sense to get caught in the cycle of “go out and find more clients and sell them the same old product.” In order to boost your income considerably, you must, instead, begin creating new products that meet the needs of your existing clients.

Once you make up your mind to pursue additional business with existing clients, you can step off the never-ending cycle of chasing new clients and watch your income move up at the same time.

Learning What Your Clients Need
You may be asking yourself, “But how do I know what my existing clients need?” You can actually use the same process that you used to create your original products. Here are some helpful steps:

• Look at your client base as a target market.
• What questions are those existing clients asking?
• What additional needs continue to be unmet after they buy your product?
• What add-on products complement your original offerings?
• How could your product line be expanded naturally to meet more needs?

Here’s an example that illustrates how a one-product company can create add-on sales to its existing customers. A hypnotherapist specializes in smoking cessation hypnosis. She has lots of clients who come to her for that service, but once they stop smoking, she doesn’t ever see them again. She’s spending a lot of time and money in marketing to attract new clients.

Because her existing clients know her smoking cessation sessions work, they’re the perfect prospects for additional services. By listening to her current clients’ concerns, she learns many of them are ready to take on new challenges in life, now that they’ve quit smoking. She offers to help with visualization sessions so they can focus on their new goals.

By expanding how she sees her existing client base, and focuses on their needs, she has opened the door to a whole new level of income. You can do the same thing. If necessary, take some time off from marketing to new target audiences and turn your complete focus on your existing customer base.

Develop the habit of listening to your clients’ questions and determining what needs still exist. Turn those needs into products that fill them. Not only will your clients be grateful, you’ll also see your income multiply substantially.

You will always have to do some marketing to bring in new clients, but there’s far less pressure when you’re making repeat sales of new products to existing clients. Once you stop chasing new clients and focus on building more products to help your customer base, your whole business will turn around. Learn how to mine the gold of repeat sales to build a strong, sustainable business and a solid base of satisfied customers.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Did you know there’s a way to build your business quickly, without more work on your part? Building a referral network to provide additional services to your clients not only serves your clients better, it also opens a new source of income for you.

There are plenty of reasons to begin referring your clients to other professionals. Here are the top three:

1. Making referrals allows you to focus on and promote your own unique abilities and talents.
Why spend the time learning new skills whenever a client requires a new service? Make a referral, instead.
2. Building a referral network allows you to better serve your clients.
Directing your clients to quality services that compliment yours saves them time and effort.
3. Referral fees represent an additional income source for your business.
Referral fees and referral business from your network can be a big boost to your income.

To get started follow these three steps and start building a strong referral network for your business:

1. Make a list of additional services that could benefit your clients.
What are natural additions to the services they receive from you?
2. Watch for opportunities to form partnerships with other professionals.
As you do business, pay attention to others in complimentary fields.
3. Set up referral agreements with them for a new source of income.
Establish fees you’ll receive in return for making referrals.

Think of the possibilities available to you. How will referrals benefit YOUR clients? To give you an idea – here’s an example of a successful referral network.
As you can see, each of the professionals in this network is someone who can directly benefit the business coach’s clientele. By making referrals to them, she isn’t required to learn what they know in order to serve her clients.

Sometimes, the best way to serve the needs of your clients is to refer them to someone with the complementary skills.

Your clients will appreciate being able to work through a single business to find professional services in several areas.

Referring your clients to experts who can meet all their needs establishes you as a true professional. Start building your referral network today. The added service you provide and the additional income it brings will have you wondering why you waited so long.

Imagine going into a shop. Inside there are lots of beautiful objects, artistically displayed. You can’t see any price tags, and because of the way that things are laid out it’s hard for you to distinguish between what’s actually on sale, and what is simply part of the display. There is one item in particular that you really like but you don’t want to pick it up in case it’s not on sale. Or it might turn out to be too expensive and then you’d feel embarrassed. There is an assistant standing nearby, but you’re too shy to ask because you’re worried about looking foolish. Also, sometimes in the past when you’ve gone into a shop and asked questions, you’ve felt a bit pressured to buy.

So after hanging around, not sure what to do, you reluctantly and sadly decide to leave.

I’m willing to wager that there are lots of people who are already attracted to you and what you’re offering, yet they are failing to become paying clients because they feel like the customer in the scenario above.

Notice that in this scenario both parties miss out. The customer doesn’t get their needs met, and the shopkeeper fails to make a sale.
What a shame – for both parties.

It’s your responsibility to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you. That means making it easy for them to make the buying decision, preferably without you.

Lots of people in service businesses fall foul of ‘bespokeitis’. It’s great that every client is different. And it’s great that you tailor your service to your clients. But you are missing out on opportunities if you fail to ‘productise’ your offerings.

What do I mean by ‘productise’? I am not necessarily talking about creating physical products, but making your service offerings more tangible by putting them into packages. Here’s how:

1. Sell the solution, not the means of attaining it. For example, a weight loss coach might offer one-to-one coaching, but would find it much easier to sell a 90 day weight loss package. Coaching is just a means to an end. It’s easier to sell, because you have made it easier for the customer to make their buying decision. Providing a package makes the service more tangible.

2. Clear Pricing. Products usually have price tags, however services often do not. When you buy a sofa, you know the price up front; you pay it, and take the sofa home. When you need decoration services for your apartment, the price depends on quality, size, timing and experience of the designer. When services do not have fixed price tags, or guarantees, the customer can feel very uncertain about their purchase. If you can package certain aspects of your service with clear price points, this will help the customer feel that they are in control.

3. Quantify the benefits . If you ‘productise’ your services, it’s easier to quantify the results a person can expect. Your testimonials have more credibility, because they come from clients and customers who have experienced that same package.