Their main point is that your existing customers are the best route to improved sales. Existing customers don’t need to be convinced to do business with you like a new person or business. Thus it costs you less time and money to sell more of your products or services to them. When you do this, sell more to existing customers, you increase your share of their budget… you increase your share of customer.

Another concept that Don Peppers and Martha Rogers promote is that you treat different customers differently. Now, this isn’t to say that you give your traditional customer service to some and treat others poorly. It means that some of your customers are great customers, maybe they comprise the top 10 or 25% of your client list. Conversely there are customers that for whatever reason, maybe they buy infrequently or they require more time from you, are the opposite of your great customers. You may have only 5% of your client list in this category. Once you recognize that you have different classes of customers what Peppers & Rogers suggest is that you trim the bottom of your client list so that you can spend more time with the better customers. When you spend more time on them you can improve the attention you pay to their needs which will lead to improved sales and greater profits.

So how does this strategy improve sales? At the simplest level you are freeing yourself to spend more time with your remaining customers. This time can be spent studying their businesses and buying habits so you can suggest ways to optimize their use of your products or services. Another avenue you could follow is to study your overall sales and develop new bundles or products that are more valuable or useful to your existing customers.

We’re all in business for ourselves and our customers. The better we serve them, the better we’re able to take care of ourselves and our families.

Below all of the planning and positioning is the core concept of how do you want to run your business? Put simply some business people believe in the volume model while others believe in the high margin model. Of course there is a middle ground where you increase your selling price and hopefully your profit margin as well while selling less product.

• Volume Model – Sell tons of product at a low price
• Blended Volume and Margin Model
• Margin Model – Sell few items at high profit margins

When it comes to products I tend to be a volume model person when possible. I believe in offering a valuable product or service to customers that is so compelling that high volumes are demanded and provided. In good and bad economies these products tend to survive.

What I’ve noticed lately is a trend by various marketers and Internet entrepreneurs to push people towards the margin model by increasing sales prices. Now profit margins are important. You want to maximize them as much as possible. What I have noticed is that this trend seems to be advocating that you increase your profit margin by inflating the value proposition of the product or service that you sell. They basically tell you to add a few things to your offering to make it seem “deluxe” and thus raise your price a multiple of the actual cost of the “embellishments.”

As we all know the economy is still a bit “rough.” While you might be able to increase your prices a little when you increase the actual value of what you’re selling… increasing prices over the addition of basically embellishments or fluff may actually do your business more harm than good. We all exist to serve our customers. If we damage that relationship by introducing things that don’t serve our customer’s needs they will take notice. If we do it long enough or often enough they will find other people to take their money.

Before you do anything “trendy” with your pricing or product mix really think about how your customers will react. Ask yourself, and be honest, how you would react if someone you are doing business with just raised their price(s) due to the addition of what could be considered an unnecessary embellishment?

Stan Timek

How do you collect testimonials? It’s simple really. Look at your customer list and select a group of your best customers. Reach out to them and ask them to complete a customer satisfaction survey. Leave some space at the end for comments an be sure to ask them for permission to use their name and comments in future marketing materials.

Now that you have some testimonials how do you use them to your best advantage? Look for comments that speak about real benefits. Testimonials need to be believable. Have the comments focus on one benefit at a time. If a customer talks about three things, break the testimonial down into three. Simple comments are more believable. Try to keep the testimonials as natural sounding as possible and look for comment that are detailed in their explanation of why they like your business. Vague words of praise don’t ring true to the reader. Finally don’t forget to put in the customer’s name and location these are critical in validating the comment with your reader.

Now go out there, collect some comments from your customers, and increase your business using testimonials.

My response? How long can you afford to lose business? Because you know that poor service drives customers away and it sure doesn’t create repeat business!

Imagine that you’re starting up a new service-focused business. It could be anything from a hair salon to pizza shop to an on-line travel agency. How you interact with your customers, how your physical space is laid out and decorated all work to inform your customer service experience. There’s a pizza shop near-by that does good advertising. They have a personality that they’ve created and they “sell” it in all their outbound communications.

So far so good.

When you go to their shop they have outdoor seating with umbrellas. It’s very nice but there is no inside seating. So in poor weather or during the winter months they’re strictly a take-out or delivery operation. That’s fine as long as their customer service is good right? Well this is where things start going a little sideways. Inside, the shop looks like a factory floor. There’s metal shelving and industrial ovens and of course pizza boxes in the business part of the floor space. The counter is a narrow shelf of a thing with a ton of P.O.P. displays and there’s no where to sit while you wait for your order. Good customer service? Hmmm.

So how’s your customer service? Do you make your customers feel like royalty who can’t wait to come back and do business with you again? Or do you make them uncomfortable and leave them wondering why they ever called your business in the first place.

Good logo design is difficult as there are a lot of considerations that play into the creation of a successful, lasting logo. There’s graphic design of course, psychology, sociology, and even current events and trends of which you need to be aware.

Why did I mention current events and trends? Because if you’re creating a logo, one that is to last throughout the ages, you don’t necessarily want to create one that looks “trendy” today. Because as that design or style trend wears out or fades (and they all do eventually) you run the risk of having your company’s image become dated and frozen in time. Your image is everything. It’s the first thing the general public and prospects see – you have to make sure that it says the right thing about your business.

Like all things about your business, spend time on the design of your logo. Unless you’re a graphic designer, hire someone to help you create your logo and the rest of your “image.” It’ll be some of the best money you ever spend relative to your business.

Today we have on-demand printing, variable data printing, and incredibly high-quality printing that we can do right in our own offices! Your presence on paper is very important because people do appreciate the tangibility of printed materials. How you create your print pieces is very important. Don’t shortcut the message and planning that goes into successful print pieces – you don’t in any other area of your business do you?

So here’s our cheat sheet for creating great print pieces:

1. Sit down an plan what you want the piece to do. “Strategize”
2. Write the copy that will appear on the piece. Do a first draft, then revise, rewrite, and revise again until it’s perfect.
3. Decide what images will appear on your piece. Company logos, product photos, illustrations, all of them need to be at print resolution.
4. Next think about what paper you will be using. Is there texture? How thick should it be? These are important believe me.
5. Now for the hard part, I mean the fun begins… Design. This is where you build the print piece to fulfill its purpose.
6. Evaluate the design. Ask a friend, then ask a customer. If it isn’t doing its job, revise it or hire a professional designer.
7. Print! Send your electronic files to the printer and once they’re done, get to work making money!!

A well designed piece using terrific paper shouts to the world that your company, your products and services are top notch. And isn’t that what you want?