Archive for September, 2011

Twitter – Weekly Updates for 2011-09-30

Friday, September 30th, 2011 at 8:15 pm  
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Twitter – Weekly Updates for 2011-09-23

Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 8:15 pm  
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Hands up if you’ve got a CRM System!

Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 11:41 am  
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And if you haven’t got a CRM system GET ONE TODAY!! Your database absolutely has to be one of your TOP priorities. Without it, you can’t effectively know your business and you can’t effectively grow your business.

Failing to have a great database is one more way business owners are sabotaging their businesses every day!

But the real selling power isn’t in your data. It’s what you do with that data. And that’s why customer relationship management (CRM) is such a big deal.

Once the domain only of the corporate world, thousands of small businesses are now using CRM systems to powerfully manage customer and prospect interactions and to automate their entire sales funnels. LOTS of small businesses are in the game here. It’s been one of the biggest challenges of the last five years.

So what’s the big deal? Businesses just like yours are now using CRM for finding, wooing, winning and retaining customers. They have immense power to segment customers into different groups and communicate with them – often automatically but always in a very personalised way – about what impacts them the most, manage marketing and sales campaigns and measure the results. That’s the big deal.

These tools are getting more sophisticated – and more cost effective – as they’re increasingly scaled to small companies.

Sales and Marketing Insight
You can streamline and track your sales process so you’ll spend less time selling and more time making bank deposits.

With CRM you can track and measure all your marketing campaigns. You’ll see how many leads and sales you’ve achieved with each campaign. You’ll see how campaigns have moved buyers through the sales pipeline. You’ll see what’s working and what’s not!

Segmenting customers
You can track each customer’s spending patterns, what they like and what they don’t like, where they live, their age and more. Track this data and you’ll be able to develop an excellent picture of what they want, what they need and their purchasing habits – and market to them accordingly. CRM allows you to target segmented buying groups intelligently. You’ll know overall buying trends, even those of your most profitable customers. You can target when the time is right, such as a certain season or on their birthday – you name it! You’ll know it!

Social Media
Some CRM solutions now include ways for companies to access social media conversations about their products and company. By integrating with social networking sites, you can find relevant leads. You can even crowd- source products to find out what customers think.

For small businesses? Yes!
Last year we developed a CRM system for our thebestof franchisees. We took the best features from the myriad of CRM systems available in the UK and bundled them into a single package. It’s available now to UK businesses for just £29.95 a month – you can even try it for free!

The truth is, I don’t care which system you use. But I do care that you use a system. Without a CRM, you are putting yourself at a massive disadvantage and that’s just dumb in this day and age. Your investment in your CRM should pay for itself, many, many times over in the first six months if you use it properly.

If you haven’t got a CRM system – GET ONE!

Twitter – Weekly Updates for 2011-09-16

Friday, September 16th, 2011 at 8:15 pm  
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They said WHAT??

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 7:22 am  
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What your customers say about you matters - a LOT!

It didn’t use to matter a whole lot what people said about your business. Sure, a bit of word-of-mouth marketing was useful, but if people weren’t happy they couldn’t do you much damage. It’s all changed.

In the age of quick and easy social media, testimonials are more important than ever before. They’re also easier and more powerful to deliver than ever before. That’s why businesses that don’t have testimonials front and centre of their marketing efforts are missing out. Excellent testimonials from raving customers are no longer simply an advantage. Today, they’re a requirement.

If you work with the public, you will get complaints. That wasn’t a big deal until recently. Now, you get enough unhappy customers, for whatever reason, and their complaints will become very public and damaging. No matter how great your business is, you will get nasty reviews on Google Places and other online review sites. You’ll be slammed on Facebook by a customer who had a bad experience.

Word will get out. Whether you know about it or not. (You do have Google Alerts set up for your business name don’t you?)

Instead of trying (unsuccessfully) to run from it, you must accept it and work with it. Engage with people who comment about you online good or bad. Get into dialogue with them. Address their concerns. Tackle their issues head on – it’s a much better strategy than the old ‘head in the sand’! But an even better approach is to proactively gather and promote testimonials.

So what?

Testimonials are the ‘so what’ of your marketing and sales claims. Your customers have huge credibility compared to you. And they can say much more than you can in far fewer words. Gathering your testimonials is only a small part of the battle in today’s climate. More importantly, you have to get them in front of buyers. You know you need to have testimonials on your website and in your marketing materials. But that’s so five years ago.

Today you need to gather them and promote them in places where they’ll be seen. Make your testimonials viral. Promote them on Facebook – your personal and business LinkedIn recommendations matter a lot. You’ll be amazed how many people check you out! You can tweet a testimonial a day about your business – perfect if it’s a re-tweet from a customer!
But even better than the written word – much better – are video testimonials. Get your best customers to give you some short video testimonials that you can share virally on YouTube and other social media. Make it easy for them. Go to their offices and film them. The videos need to be clear and have good audio, but they don’t need to look like a million pound production. Now, that’s a bit more current.

Next, be sure to use one of the most powerful tools today to promote your testimonials. Google Places. Reviews of your business will be found with this tool. And more is definitely better. The more reviews you have, the better your Google Places listing will be optimised for search. So encourage people. Incentivise them even. Run a contest to encourage your customers to write a review for you. But definitely ask them!

If you’re a member of thebestof – and if you’re not, why not? – then make the most of the never-ending supply of personally branded postcards that your local thebestof person can supply you with. These are a brilliant tool to collect good customer feedback – and it’s all done for you. And our annual 14 Days of Love campaign is a great way to mobilise your customer in a fun and engaging way.

It’s that important. It’s this simple; if you have plenty of up to date excellent testimonials, more people will buy what you’re selling… and vice versa.

Twitter – Weekly Updates for 2011-09-09

Friday, September 9th, 2011 at 8:15 pm  
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Speed matters!

Friday, September 9th, 2011 at 4:15 pm  
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Speedy Gonzales

Let me tell you something that the winners in business all know. They know that to win you have to get things implemented and done more quickly than anyone else.

They do their research. They understand their customers, their market and their products. And then, when they have enough data and the resources are in line, the move – QUICKLY! They’re willing to take risks, be innovative and to do things nobody has done before.

They know that ‘good is good enough/ and that perfection is vastly overrated and they get stuff done. That’s why they’re the winners.

Speed matters today like never before. It’s making or breaking companies.

We launched Peel2Save within 8 weeks this year. I wanted to get it done before my summer holiday so it got done. Most organisations would take 12 months to create a £million business. It just goes to show what can be done in a short period of time.

Not everybody’s moving quickly though. Many business owners love to dither and prevaricate. They kid themselves that they are immersed in gathering lots of information. They’re writing plans. They’re having meetings and going for long walks to discuss their plans. They’re exercising caution and waiting for the perfect opportunity to make their move.

It takes months or sometimes even years to launch their initiative. Decisiveness is a word they don’t understand – yet it’s a characteristic of all successful people in business.

Britain has hundreds of thousands of business owners who are world class at getting ready. (To be clear – that’s NOT a good thing to be!)

One of the great advantages of being a small business is the ability to move with blazing speed compared to everybody else. You call the shots. You control your destiny. You don’t need to mobilise a large, unwieldy organisation or ensure that you’ve catered to various political sensitivities. You can just do it.

At our monthly national event this month we’re hoping to demonstrate this for our members…

On the Sunday evening we’re going to create a brand new business. It’ll be a ‘proper’ business, selling real product to the public. And we’re going to build it and market it right in front of their eyes!

My whole team will be with me on stage and everyone at the event will become part of the team for the day. They’ll have the opportunity to get involved with different aspects of the launch, it might be an email campaign, or a product video, some sales copy, a guarantee or one of the many other facets that we’ll be tackling.

Needless to say, we’ve never tried this before, so it’s a huge risk, but the question people ask me most often is “how do you get so much done so quickly Nige?” and I decided that there’s no better way for me to explain this than to show them! Who knows how it will all turn out, but at the very least I hope this will be one lesson our members will never forget!

The biggest difference between large income, super successful businesses and low income average businesses is the amount of stuff that gets implemented. Speed is the great strength of the small business. Are you using it to your advantage or are you world class at getting ready?

Please Help :)

Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 10:36 am  
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Sometimes all the doom & gloom can get a bit much!

The world can often appear to be full of doom and gloom these days. The economic situation is rarely out of the media and watching any TV news or reading newspapers ain’t going to make you feel better – about anything. Quite the opposite in fact! You’d be forgiven for feeling like you’re losing the plot sometimes!

However, 2 months ago I asked members of my Entrepreneurs Circle to make a short video about how they were ‘Making it Happen’ in their business. The results were outstanding. All over Britain, and in all sorts of industries and sectors, there are people who are pushing ahead, day after day, growing their businesses, creating new jobs and looking after their customers better than ever before, flourishing and thriving despite the economy, the banks, and the media.

These people are heroes in 2011.

More than ever before UK PLC needs the business owners and entrepreneurs of our country to make things happen and I’ve chosen 14 of the best, most inspiring, (most entertaining!) videos that were sent in and I’m putting them up as finalists for the ‘Making It Happen’ awards.

You can watch all 14 videos here. And vote for the business owner who you think is most deserving of the ‘Making it Happen’ Award. The winner will be the one who gets the most votes.

None of videos last more than 3 minutes and I promise that even if you only watch one or two, that they will inspire you, energise you and make you feel better and more confident about your own future and your business.

These guys are special – because they’re doing it. They’re not talking or wishing or dreaming. They’re not whinging or complaining or blaming anyone else. They’re getting on and doing it – every day, and I salute them.

Find a few minutes in your day today to watch a couple of the videos and cast your vote. Lets recognise the heroes and then ‘make it happen’ together…

It’ll make you feel good!

Cheers,

Nigel

Twitter – Weekly Updates for 2011-09-02

Friday, September 2nd, 2011 at 8:15 pm  
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