What is the best way to obtain business partners and customers?
I am a consultant for a nationally know cosmetics company. Its the "party plan" kind of business. I am looking for ways to grow my business with new, loyal customers and business partners. Any suggestions? P.S. Please don't regard this as spam since I have not included the company name or any further contact information. Thanks!
Answers:
I won't repeat the excellent answer you've already been given above, but I've been a speaker at large meetings for consultants of several major party plan companies who offer cosmetics - so I totally understand the challenges you face.
The reason why IMHO many women keep looking for new, new, new ways to grow their business and get customers and partners is because they're uncomfortable with what they've been told by their upline they need to do. Why are they uncomfortable? Because "getting out there" and approaching people feels totally foreign and uncomfortable to many women who were raised to wait for people to come to them. The result is that we wait for customers to call us the same way we waited for the cute boy in high school History class to call us for a date. So, if the thought of marketing and selling in your business practically drives you to chocolate - read on.
The truth is in your business there are many ways you can meet new customers in your day to day life - but none of them will work if you just feel too uncomfortable. Or you love meeting and talking with people about your products and your opportunity - but you hate asking them for anything - a sale, to have a party at their home, etc.
Marketing and selling is never about us - it's about doing something that will appeal to our customers so that they will take the next step and buy from us. So if you keep looking for ways to market and sell that are comfortable to you - you are making it about you. It's not. It's about the customer. The minute we try to make it about us - it fails.
I'm the author of a popular myth-shattering book that's all about the Mars-Venus reasons why women have so many challenges when it comes to marketing and selling now that we are starting businesses at double the rate of men. It all boils down to making different conscious choices and coming out of your comfort zone - because your business growth won't happen any faster than your personal growth.
What does this mean? It means that every time you say, "Ooh, I couldn't do THAT," you are slowing down the potential growth of your business. My experience after mentoring over 1,200 women and men in marketing is that women keep looking for new ways to get customers - not because the way they were told didn't work but because it made them uncomfortable. (I'm not suggesting anything out of integrity here - for many women just walking up and initiating a conversation is mortifying to them.)
When I get a new client for my marketing mentoring practise I ask my prospective clients about their business and what they want to achieve. I also answer all their questions about what the process of marketing mentoring is like, my fees, etc. Towards the end of the conversation I ask them five questions. They are always the same five questions. And those five questions result in a "yes" and a new client about 80 percent of the time. That's an 80% closing rate - which anyone experienced in sales will tell you is amazingly good. Especially for an expensive service.
Because those five questions are so effective - I've never changed them. Do I like those questions? The first three I like - I love hearing people's answers. I've grown a little bored with the questions - but it's not about me. My client hasn't heard those questions before - and that's all that matters.
The last two questions I have to take a deep breath and pull up my courage a bit before I ask - because I'm asking for a yes. I know I have about an 80% probability of a "yes" but still a 20% possibility of a "no." And nobody wants to hear a "no." So does it make me a little uncomfortable? Sure. Would my business practise go down in the number of clients and hence revenues if I didn't ask those last two questions? You bet.
So, increasing your confidence level, especially as a woman, is one of the very best ways to increase your number of customers because all the things you've been told to do will work, become effortless and you start saying, "Wow - this really works! It was just me who wasn't working it."
All the best,
Denise Michaels
Author, "Testosterone-Free Marketing"
Get the book at http://www.tfmbook.com
http://www.mentoringwithdenise.com...
The only way companies make money is through their customers. Too often, we lose touch with our customers and we forget how important they are to the success of the organization. Customer focus means, to make one time customer a regular customer through strategic management . Customer retention is so vital to the firm, and it takes to achieve customer loyalty.
There are seven different skills important to building and maintaining customer focus :
methods of being attentive and responsive to them,
techniques for enhancing loyalty,
ways of building trust and commitment,
methods for demonstrating competency,
strategies for recovering from poor customer interactions,
principles of hassle-free service
Ways of effectively communicating with customers be it in sales encounter or in a problem solving situation.
The program focuses on what individual employees can do to build and enhance customer loyalty.
ORGANIZATIONS ROLE TO MAINTAIN CUSTOMER FOCUS:
An organization must need to do following steps to maintain the customer focus.
Competitive advantage
A company may attempt to differentiate itself from its competition through the provision of better customer service. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes people, technology, and processes. Although, the rewards will include improved revenue from customers that are impressed with the service provided.
Role of technology
Technology has made available a wide range of customer service tools. They range from support websites and the ability to have live chats with technical staff to databases tracking individual customers' preferences, pattern of buying, payment methods etc., and tailoring products and service responses based on this advanced data. Specialist software that is designed for the tracking of service levels and for helping recognize areas for improvement are often integrated into other enterprise operational software tools such as ERP software.
Many companies have started to use new channels to capture customer feedback. With record number of people now communicating through mobile phone and sending texts, many argue that the next wave of customer feedback will primarily be captured through channels familiar to most consumers, such as mobile email and SMS. This will enable companies to track the opinions of their customers much more easily and gain valuable insight into how to improve service quality and enhance the customer experience.
Accountability
Customers tend to be more forgiving of organizations who acknowledge and apologize for their mistakes rather than denying them. Taking responsibility for mistakes and correcting them is considered an important aspect of good customer service. When a Customer experiences poor service and is ignored the customer is less likely to return to that company again.
Instant feedback
Recently, many organizations have implemented feedback loops that allow them to capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, one of the UK's leading coach companies invites passengers to send text messages whilst riding the bus. This has been shown to be useful as it allows companies to improve their customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will return next time.
Developing & Maintaining a Customer Focused Team
Introduction
Customers are central to our business, the Team Leader is responsible for ensuring the team focuses on and delivers customer requirements. This one-day programme aims to identify the characteristics of a customer-focused team and the development of tools and techniques required to ensure the team members support the organizations customer service policy/approach.
Develop a mechanism for developing customer focus within your team
Identify opportunities for improvement within your team
Develop customer service skills and techniques
Module Content
Who are your customers? - Identifying your customers, internal and external customers
Customer expectations - understanding the expectations of your customer, in terms of service and product, internal and external customer.
What is your role? - the Team Leaders role in Customer Service, what part do you play?
Your current Customer Service level - self-appraisal and analysis, how you measure up at the moment?
The importance of good Customer Service - to you and the business.
Demonstrating customer focus - customer focused behaviors and attitudes:
Listening
Questioning
Rapport
Customer Service Formula - Developing a recipe for delivering excellent customer service/focus , code of conduct for the team.
Personal Action-Planning - developing a plan for transferring tools and techniques into the workplace.
BENEFIT OF CUSTOMER FOCUS TO INTERNAL CUSTOMER:
The Internal customer e.g. your staff, will benefit significantly by good customer care. More effective management will lead to a more motivated workforce. It will also give you improved co-operation between your departments. Your staff will welcome the fact that you are willing to invest valuable time and money in them as individuals as well as a team, and will have more job security.
BENEFIT OF CUSTOMER CARE TO EXTERNAL CUSTOMER
Your External customers e.g. the members of the general public are the most important people to your organization. Without these people coming into your shop and buying your furniture your business would not succeed. If a customer feels like she is interrupting your staff she will shop elsewhere in future, which will only result in a lost sale for your organization. It is vitally important to make your External customer feel valued at all stages of the sale, Pre-sale, during sale and after sale. If your customer enjoys her experience and has a good time under your staff, then certainly she will use your organisation again.
THE CONTRIBUTION THAT EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER FOCUS MAKES TO THE ORGANISATION:
Every business wants to be successful. Otherwise why would you go into business in the first place? If our internal customers are contented in their workplace and have good quality customer care training they will feel more motivated and confident. Also it will lower staff absenteeism and turnover of staff. In reality why should the staff want to leave a job they feel confident and secure in?
The same good customer care given to our External customers will lead to success in your company. our customers not only demand and expect our furniture to be of the best quality but also from the level of service they receive from our staff. Satisfied customers lead to fewer complaints for our staff to deal with, freeing up valuable time our staff could be more industrious in. The word of mouth recommendations your External customers will voice is in effect free advertising and this will without a doubt lead to improved reputation and most importantly to increased revenue.
It is essential to identify the considerations prior to development of an effective customer care strategy.
To provide a positive approach to customer care it is important to follow the main key issues.
Identify customer's needs - Knowing what your customer expects and wants from your organization.
Developing the right products and services – Once discovered your customers needs it is then vitally important that develop the product so that it will match our customers expectations.
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Answers:
I won't repeat the excellent answer you've already been given above, but I've been a speaker at large meetings for consultants of several major party plan companies who offer cosmetics - so I totally understand the challenges you face.
The reason why IMHO many women keep looking for new, new, new ways to grow their business and get customers and partners is because they're uncomfortable with what they've been told by their upline they need to do. Why are they uncomfortable? Because "getting out there" and approaching people feels totally foreign and uncomfortable to many women who were raised to wait for people to come to them. The result is that we wait for customers to call us the same way we waited for the cute boy in high school History class to call us for a date. So, if the thought of marketing and selling in your business practically drives you to chocolate - read on.
The truth is in your business there are many ways you can meet new customers in your day to day life - but none of them will work if you just feel too uncomfortable. Or you love meeting and talking with people about your products and your opportunity - but you hate asking them for anything - a sale, to have a party at their home, etc.
Marketing and selling is never about us - it's about doing something that will appeal to our customers so that they will take the next step and buy from us. So if you keep looking for ways to market and sell that are comfortable to you - you are making it about you. It's not. It's about the customer. The minute we try to make it about us - it fails.
I'm the author of a popular myth-shattering book that's all about the Mars-Venus reasons why women have so many challenges when it comes to marketing and selling now that we are starting businesses at double the rate of men. It all boils down to making different conscious choices and coming out of your comfort zone - because your business growth won't happen any faster than your personal growth.
What does this mean? It means that every time you say, "Ooh, I couldn't do THAT," you are slowing down the potential growth of your business. My experience after mentoring over 1,200 women and men in marketing is that women keep looking for new ways to get customers - not because the way they were told didn't work but because it made them uncomfortable. (I'm not suggesting anything out of integrity here - for many women just walking up and initiating a conversation is mortifying to them.)
When I get a new client for my marketing mentoring practise I ask my prospective clients about their business and what they want to achieve. I also answer all their questions about what the process of marketing mentoring is like, my fees, etc. Towards the end of the conversation I ask them five questions. They are always the same five questions. And those five questions result in a "yes" and a new client about 80 percent of the time. That's an 80% closing rate - which anyone experienced in sales will tell you is amazingly good. Especially for an expensive service.
Because those five questions are so effective - I've never changed them. Do I like those questions? The first three I like - I love hearing people's answers. I've grown a little bored with the questions - but it's not about me. My client hasn't heard those questions before - and that's all that matters.
The last two questions I have to take a deep breath and pull up my courage a bit before I ask - because I'm asking for a yes. I know I have about an 80% probability of a "yes" but still a 20% possibility of a "no." And nobody wants to hear a "no." So does it make me a little uncomfortable? Sure. Would my business practise go down in the number of clients and hence revenues if I didn't ask those last two questions? You bet.
So, increasing your confidence level, especially as a woman, is one of the very best ways to increase your number of customers because all the things you've been told to do will work, become effortless and you start saying, "Wow - this really works! It was just me who wasn't working it."
All the best,
Denise Michaels
Author, "Testosterone-Free Marketing"
Get the book at http://www.tfmbook.com
http://www.mentoringwithdenise.com...
The only way companies make money is through their customers. Too often, we lose touch with our customers and we forget how important they are to the success of the organization. Customer focus means, to make one time customer a regular customer through strategic management . Customer retention is so vital to the firm, and it takes to achieve customer loyalty.
There are seven different skills important to building and maintaining customer focus :
methods of being attentive and responsive to them,
techniques for enhancing loyalty,
ways of building trust and commitment,
methods for demonstrating competency,
strategies for recovering from poor customer interactions,
principles of hassle-free service
Ways of effectively communicating with customers be it in sales encounter or in a problem solving situation.
The program focuses on what individual employees can do to build and enhance customer loyalty.
ORGANIZATIONS ROLE TO MAINTAIN CUSTOMER FOCUS:
An organization must need to do following steps to maintain the customer focus.
Competitive advantage
A company may attempt to differentiate itself from its competition through the provision of better customer service. The consistent delivery of superior service requires the careful design and execution of a whole system of activities that includes people, technology, and processes. Although, the rewards will include improved revenue from customers that are impressed with the service provided.
Role of technology
Technology has made available a wide range of customer service tools. They range from support websites and the ability to have live chats with technical staff to databases tracking individual customers' preferences, pattern of buying, payment methods etc., and tailoring products and service responses based on this advanced data. Specialist software that is designed for the tracking of service levels and for helping recognize areas for improvement are often integrated into other enterprise operational software tools such as ERP software.
Many companies have started to use new channels to capture customer feedback. With record number of people now communicating through mobile phone and sending texts, many argue that the next wave of customer feedback will primarily be captured through channels familiar to most consumers, such as mobile email and SMS. This will enable companies to track the opinions of their customers much more easily and gain valuable insight into how to improve service quality and enhance the customer experience.
Accountability
Customers tend to be more forgiving of organizations who acknowledge and apologize for their mistakes rather than denying them. Taking responsibility for mistakes and correcting them is considered an important aspect of good customer service. When a Customer experiences poor service and is ignored the customer is less likely to return to that company again.
Instant feedback
Recently, many organizations have implemented feedback loops that allow them to capture feedback at the point of experience. For example, one of the UK's leading coach companies invites passengers to send text messages whilst riding the bus. This has been shown to be useful as it allows companies to improve their customer service before the customer defects, thus making it far more likely that the customer will return next time.
Developing & Maintaining a Customer Focused Team
Introduction
Customers are central to our business, the Team Leader is responsible for ensuring the team focuses on and delivers customer requirements. This one-day programme aims to identify the characteristics of a customer-focused team and the development of tools and techniques required to ensure the team members support the organizations customer service policy/approach.
Develop a mechanism for developing customer focus within your team
Identify opportunities for improvement within your team
Develop customer service skills and techniques
Module Content
Who are your customers? - Identifying your customers, internal and external customers
Customer expectations - understanding the expectations of your customer, in terms of service and product, internal and external customer.
What is your role? - the Team Leaders role in Customer Service, what part do you play?
Your current Customer Service level - self-appraisal and analysis, how you measure up at the moment?
The importance of good Customer Service - to you and the business.
Demonstrating customer focus - customer focused behaviors and attitudes:
Listening
Questioning
Rapport
Customer Service Formula - Developing a recipe for delivering excellent customer service/focus , code of conduct for the team.
Personal Action-Planning - developing a plan for transferring tools and techniques into the workplace.
BENEFIT OF CUSTOMER FOCUS TO INTERNAL CUSTOMER:
The Internal customer e.g. your staff, will benefit significantly by good customer care. More effective management will lead to a more motivated workforce. It will also give you improved co-operation between your departments. Your staff will welcome the fact that you are willing to invest valuable time and money in them as individuals as well as a team, and will have more job security.
BENEFIT OF CUSTOMER CARE TO EXTERNAL CUSTOMER
Your External customers e.g. the members of the general public are the most important people to your organization. Without these people coming into your shop and buying your furniture your business would not succeed. If a customer feels like she is interrupting your staff she will shop elsewhere in future, which will only result in a lost sale for your organization. It is vitally important to make your External customer feel valued at all stages of the sale, Pre-sale, during sale and after sale. If your customer enjoys her experience and has a good time under your staff, then certainly she will use your organisation again.
THE CONTRIBUTION THAT EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER FOCUS MAKES TO THE ORGANISATION:
Every business wants to be successful. Otherwise why would you go into business in the first place? If our internal customers are contented in their workplace and have good quality customer care training they will feel more motivated and confident. Also it will lower staff absenteeism and turnover of staff. In reality why should the staff want to leave a job they feel confident and secure in?
The same good customer care given to our External customers will lead to success in your company. our customers not only demand and expect our furniture to be of the best quality but also from the level of service they receive from our staff. Satisfied customers lead to fewer complaints for our staff to deal with, freeing up valuable time our staff could be more industrious in. The word of mouth recommendations your External customers will voice is in effect free advertising and this will without a doubt lead to improved reputation and most importantly to increased revenue.
It is essential to identify the considerations prior to development of an effective customer care strategy.
To provide a positive approach to customer care it is important to follow the main key issues.
Identify customer's needs - Knowing what your customer expects and wants from your organization.
Developing the right products and services – Once discovered your customers needs it is then vitally important that develop the product so that it will match our customers expectations.