It's really interesting this year how people's moods are changing. Back in December, everyone was full of doom and gloom about how 2009 would turn out. At the end of January, people had cheered up realising that things were not as bad as they feared.
And now in April, everyone's mood seems to have gone the other way again. Things have gone quiet for many people and small businesses are a bit down in the dump!
But let's break things down a bit. I think this quietness has got a lot to do with Easter and the end of the financial year too. Last year, Easter was at the end of March and first week of April, so three weeks of each month were left.
This year, Easter has completely taken out two weeks of April, meaning that many people have taken those two weeks off! Combined with the end of the financial year for most people being in March, many companies still haven't got their act together yet about the budgets in April.
But, now is not the time to sit there and wallow in feeling down. Now is the time to get out there and do some marketing to build things for May and June. As Chris Cardell said yesterday "if someone put a gun to your head and said unless you got 5 new customers by the end of the day, you'd die", you'd do everything possible to get that business wouldn't you?
So, get up, shake yourself off and get out there and get some business!
Monday 27 April 2009
Thursday 23 April 2009
What to do with all your business cards?
How many business cards have you gathered since you’ve been in business? I’ve seen business owners with hundreds if not thousands of business cards stored in card boxes, in jacket pockets, stapled to diaries and contact details scribbled on bits of paper.
Are you the same? Do you have hundreds of business cards lying around in various places?
I’d like you to ask yourself a question…how effective are these business cards for you at the moment?
A few years ago, I was in the same situation. I had piles of business cards. In fact, I remember I had to go out and buy two more business card boxes because I just did not have the space to hold them all.
But I didn’t actually do anything with them. They were just sat there looking at me.
Occasionally, if someone asked me for some contact details, I’d go through them quickly to find the right person, but rarely found the card I was looking for.
Then I began to realise the power of contacting past contacts and it dawned on me that I would actually need to do something about my business cards. So, I painstakingly sat there and typed them all out onto a database on excel.
Just putting these contacts somewhere made it possible for me to do something with them. For instance, I could:
· Touch base with these contacts to find out how they were getting on.
· Make notes and colour code excel to show what was happening with each person.
· Find people quickly and easily.
· Produce reports and statistics if I needed to.
The most important difference though was that I was able to follow up with people and start to build a relationship with them. Because I could touch base with people properly, I found it had a dramatic difference on my business and got me new customers.
Next time you collect business cards, make sure firstly that you jot down where you met the person and the date. Then, when you get back to your computer, put the person’s contact details onto your database and follow-up with them. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes.
I’ve just released a free audio recording on marketing your business. If you’d like a copy, go to www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/clients1.htm
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small businesses on their marketing and to people who are starting up in business.
Are you the same? Do you have hundreds of business cards lying around in various places?
I’d like you to ask yourself a question…how effective are these business cards for you at the moment?
A few years ago, I was in the same situation. I had piles of business cards. In fact, I remember I had to go out and buy two more business card boxes because I just did not have the space to hold them all.
But I didn’t actually do anything with them. They were just sat there looking at me.
Occasionally, if someone asked me for some contact details, I’d go through them quickly to find the right person, but rarely found the card I was looking for.
Then I began to realise the power of contacting past contacts and it dawned on me that I would actually need to do something about my business cards. So, I painstakingly sat there and typed them all out onto a database on excel.
Just putting these contacts somewhere made it possible for me to do something with them. For instance, I could:
· Touch base with these contacts to find out how they were getting on.
· Make notes and colour code excel to show what was happening with each person.
· Find people quickly and easily.
· Produce reports and statistics if I needed to.
The most important difference though was that I was able to follow up with people and start to build a relationship with them. Because I could touch base with people properly, I found it had a dramatic difference on my business and got me new customers.
Next time you collect business cards, make sure firstly that you jot down where you met the person and the date. Then, when you get back to your computer, put the person’s contact details onto your database and follow-up with them. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes.
I’ve just released a free audio recording on marketing your business. If you’d like a copy, go to www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/clients1.htm
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small businesses on their marketing and to people who are starting up in business.
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Update on Twitter
I've been on Twitter now for a couple of months so I just wanted to post and tell you how I'm finding it.
When I promote my profile on Twitter, I always get an influx of followers, which to be honest I like getting. It definitely inspires me to keep posting when I get more followers. When it goes through a quieter period where I'm not actively promoting my profile and I don't get followers, that's when updating gets harder to do.
Having said that, we were discussing in the team yesterday Facebook v Twitter. My team who use Facebook for personal uses, definitely prefer this medium. And yes, because I don't actively use FB, I prefer Twitter and I like the fact that Twitter can update FB and other on-line profiles for me without me having to actively do this.
So the jury is still out for me on whether it's useful for business, but I'm going to keep at it and see where it takes me.
When I promote my profile on Twitter, I always get an influx of followers, which to be honest I like getting. It definitely inspires me to keep posting when I get more followers. When it goes through a quieter period where I'm not actively promoting my profile and I don't get followers, that's when updating gets harder to do.
Having said that, we were discussing in the team yesterday Facebook v Twitter. My team who use Facebook for personal uses, definitely prefer this medium. And yes, because I don't actively use FB, I prefer Twitter and I like the fact that Twitter can update FB and other on-line profiles for me without me having to actively do this.
So the jury is still out for me on whether it's useful for business, but I'm going to keep at it and see where it takes me.
Wednesday 15 April 2009
Patience - what patience?
It's funny how in business there are times when you have absolutely no patience at all. At the moment I have man-flu thanks entirely to my husband! I hate colds. They always make me feel rotten and I can't stand the bunged up feeling.
When I'm feeling rubbish, that's usually when my patience levels dry up and people who take the micky or ask relatively silly questions usually get it in the neck.
I wonder though, is this just me who has low tolerance levels at various times, or does everyone feel this way?
It certainly would be interesting to find out how people feel and whether there are times when you run low on patience too...
When I'm feeling rubbish, that's usually when my patience levels dry up and people who take the micky or ask relatively silly questions usually get it in the neck.
I wonder though, is this just me who has low tolerance levels at various times, or does everyone feel this way?
It certainly would be interesting to find out how people feel and whether there are times when you run low on patience too...
Monday 6 April 2009
New look to Exceptional Thinking
After six years running Exceptional Thinking though, we decided it was time for an upgrade so we've been very hard for the last 3 months to develop a new logo, change our newsletter and update our website. We launched the logo and newsletter on Friday.
It's always a big deal in a company when you change the look and feel of it. Let me tell you we were all a bit nervous the night before as to whether people would like it. We opened on Friday to a flurry of emails - and the good news - most of them were positive! Great news for us. But there's always one isn't there who comes back with not so positive feedback and that's pretty hard to take when you've worked so hard developing the new stuff.
When you get negative comments you just have to remind yourself that you can't please everyone and after all, they're not publishing a newsletter etc, so how can they really criticise?
And then on the Sunday morning, I realised I hadn't altered a button on our database and one of the old look, March newsletters was sent out by mistake - nightmare! Again, flurry of emails asking what was going on. I'll have to explain on the next newsletter now. Oh well, never mind.
Check out our new look newsletter by going to http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/news/Newsletter1300309.htm
It's always a big deal in a company when you change the look and feel of it. Let me tell you we were all a bit nervous the night before as to whether people would like it. We opened on Friday to a flurry of emails - and the good news - most of them were positive! Great news for us. But there's always one isn't there who comes back with not so positive feedback and that's pretty hard to take when you've worked so hard developing the new stuff.
When you get negative comments you just have to remind yourself that you can't please everyone and after all, they're not publishing a newsletter etc, so how can they really criticise?
And then on the Sunday morning, I realised I hadn't altered a button on our database and one of the old look, March newsletters was sent out by mistake - nightmare! Again, flurry of emails asking what was going on. I'll have to explain on the next newsletter now. Oh well, never mind.
Check out our new look newsletter by going to http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/news/Newsletter1300309.htm
Thursday 2 April 2009
How to explain what your business does
About 6 months after I started in business, I remember attending a sales course. I had one specific question and to my utter frustration, it wasn’t answered on this course. You see, I had been attending a lot of networking events and the favourite question there is “so, what do you do?”
My problem was that I didn’t know how to explain what I did so that everyone quickly and easily understands and wants to know more.
I eventually overcame this problem, through reading books and attending more courses and of course, practice. But I hope my tips in this article can help you overcome this quicker than I did.
Let’s start by looking at what happens what someone asks you what you do.
Most people (if we’re truly honest about this) don’t care about what YOU do. They only care about what their business does. However, they have to ask this question because 1) they’re being polite and 2) they want to find out if you’re a potential customer for them.
And once they leave the networking event, they’ll go back to thinking about what’s for dinner, or when they need to pick the kids up or their next meeting.
So, the only way what you say to them is going to stick in their head is if you talk about THEM. Agreed?
Now, the next time you go to a networking event, just pay attention to what people say. It will usually go something along these lines “I do this….”; “in my business, we do…” etc. All most business owners talk about is THEMSELVES.
But, as we’ve just established above, the person who you’re talking to doesn’t care about YOU. They care about themselves too. So, when you’re talking to them, you have to only care about THEM as well.
How do you do this? Well, start by writing down on some paper, all the common issues, problems and frustrations that your customers face. Within this, you’ll probably find two or three key problems that you can talk about.
Now, deliberately focus on these problems and put them into a short paragraph that you can use when you talk to people. Within your paragraph, don’t forget to explain how you resolve these problems too.
For instance, I know that most small business owners don’t like marketing that much and want easy ways to find more customers. So, when I’m asked what I do, here’s what I say:
“We do marketing for small business owners. Most small business owners don’t like marketing that much. They find it hard work, time consuming, frustrating and often very costly. What we do is throw the marketing rule book out of the window and find low cost or even free marketing ideas that actually work for people.”
I can elaborate on this by saying what type of projects we get involved in, but hopefully you get the point. If a small business owner talks to me and hates marketing for the above reasons, I can see them nodding along to what I say and in their mind they’ve said “yes, I want to talk more to this person.”
If they’re not a small business owner or love marketing, they won’t want to talk to me further. And that’s ultimately where you want to get to when you’re explaining what you do – for someone to either be saying to themselves “yes, I’m a potential customer” or “no, I’m not”. It will make your job so much easier.
On the basis of that short speech, I have had people ringing me up the next day to arrange a meeting. Try it and see if it will work for your business too.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help to small business owners on their marketing and to people who are setting up in business.
My problem was that I didn’t know how to explain what I did so that everyone quickly and easily understands and wants to know more.
I eventually overcame this problem, through reading books and attending more courses and of course, practice. But I hope my tips in this article can help you overcome this quicker than I did.
Let’s start by looking at what happens what someone asks you what you do.
Most people (if we’re truly honest about this) don’t care about what YOU do. They only care about what their business does. However, they have to ask this question because 1) they’re being polite and 2) they want to find out if you’re a potential customer for them.
And once they leave the networking event, they’ll go back to thinking about what’s for dinner, or when they need to pick the kids up or their next meeting.
So, the only way what you say to them is going to stick in their head is if you talk about THEM. Agreed?
Now, the next time you go to a networking event, just pay attention to what people say. It will usually go something along these lines “I do this….”; “in my business, we do…” etc. All most business owners talk about is THEMSELVES.
But, as we’ve just established above, the person who you’re talking to doesn’t care about YOU. They care about themselves too. So, when you’re talking to them, you have to only care about THEM as well.
How do you do this? Well, start by writing down on some paper, all the common issues, problems and frustrations that your customers face. Within this, you’ll probably find two or three key problems that you can talk about.
Now, deliberately focus on these problems and put them into a short paragraph that you can use when you talk to people. Within your paragraph, don’t forget to explain how you resolve these problems too.
For instance, I know that most small business owners don’t like marketing that much and want easy ways to find more customers. So, when I’m asked what I do, here’s what I say:
“We do marketing for small business owners. Most small business owners don’t like marketing that much. They find it hard work, time consuming, frustrating and often very costly. What we do is throw the marketing rule book out of the window and find low cost or even free marketing ideas that actually work for people.”
I can elaborate on this by saying what type of projects we get involved in, but hopefully you get the point. If a small business owner talks to me and hates marketing for the above reasons, I can see them nodding along to what I say and in their mind they’ve said “yes, I want to talk more to this person.”
If they’re not a small business owner or love marketing, they won’t want to talk to me further. And that’s ultimately where you want to get to when you’re explaining what you do – for someone to either be saying to themselves “yes, I’m a potential customer” or “no, I’m not”. It will make your job so much easier.
On the basis of that short speech, I have had people ringing me up the next day to arrange a meeting. Try it and see if it will work for your business too.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help to small business owners on their marketing and to people who are setting up in business.
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