Time's a wastin’

To be good at time management, you must identify those tasks that are time wasters. I recently read an article that mentioned a time management theory by David Heinemeier Hansson, an entrepreneur extraordinaire, where he recommends that you should plan to do the most work of your day within 50% of your day rather than plan to complete 8 hours of work in a day. He says we are fooling ourselves if we think in our 8 hour work day we complete 8 hours of work. He suggest if we plan to complete 4 hours of work in an 8 hour work day, we would succeed far greater with our time management and have more to show for. He says if we take into consideration bathroom breaks, lunch, and an occasional snack (our fuel) we probably only have 4-5 hours left to our work day anyway so get real about your time and plan accordingly.

Cut Up the Pie 

Things like reading email throughout the day, riding the world-wide-web (my weakness), or not scheduling a time to return phone calls are all examples of time wasting activities. Identify about how much time each activity takes and when is the best time to do these activities. Think of your day as if it’s a big apple pie. YUM! Apple pie and a big brimming cup of coffee sounds pretty good right now! Anyway, back to what I was saying…. Your day is like a big apple pie! Segmented into different pieces that all come together. If one piece of this pie were missing it would be very obvious.

The ‘apple pie’ of my day is segmented into phone calls, design time, consultation time, and personal time. If I didn't segment my time, I would be crossing over into these planned activities all day long leaving me no time to do other things and no real results of accomplishing any of them. What does your day look like? 

Onward and Upward!

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My Plate Runneth Over

So it is said that we all receive the same amount of time during the day. Some of us are wise users of our time and some of us are not so good with minding our time portion of the day. Are you a good manager of your time or do you find yourself running like a racehorse throughout the day racing to catch up to tasks and projects?

Time management , as defined by wikipedia, is the process or act of planning and exercising control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. 

To accomplish time management I must value my 24 hours given to me as well as manage the priorities around me and act diligently. 

I don’t know about you but I am a master at multi tasking various projects at once. Okay….I am guilty of thinking this is a good thing. Multi tasking various projects at the same time is not a skill it’s exhausting. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with activity of multi tasking, it’s how you execute it is where we tend to stumble and fall. It is better to multi task within a project than to multi task different projects that do not support or correspond to each other at the same time. What happens when we try to do this is called shotty, burn out, and not complete. This is the perfect time to hold a very necessary conversation with ourselves about what are priorities are and what we need to delegate to someone else or just plain say ‘NO’ to. Being a FOCUS TASKER is really what we want to achieve. Identifying all those pieces that need to be touched on within a project and completing them in a timely manner is what we should aim to achieve with our daily time allotment.

This week, let’s GET REAL about Time Management and the Tactics we should engage in to be successful Time Managers!

Onward and Upward!

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Be Direct with Your Incentives

Promoting your business is an essential activity to a thriving business. A focused and effective marketing plan to promote one’s business can easily double their customer base and I do hope you will try these 5 ways you can be successful with promoting monthly incentives to grow your business:

1. Give away a free sample 
2. Update your marketing materials 
3. Get creative with promotional products 
4. Launch a direct-mail campaign 
5. Start a client appreciation program 

Launch a direct-mail campaign 

Again, before you set out to spend the time and money on a campaign is to make sure to have a clear objective of what you want to accomplish with your mailing. Do you want more customers or do you want to offer an incentive to get the customers that you have already to come back to purchase more? Having an idea of what you want to accomplish with your direct mailings will help conserve money and make your direct mailing campaign effective.

If you missed our latest posts about the benefits of direct mailing with Send Out Cards, here are some highlights:

Just Say It with A Card 
Be Consistent: Stay in Touch
Brand Your Correspondence 

Start a Client Appreciation Program

A few week ago we touched on what Appreciation Marketing can do for your business. A Client Appreciation Program is a systematic approach to staying on the mind of your clients and potential customers. Not every business is the same so I won’t be able to give you a cookie-cutter process to accomplish this. However, here are some ideas to implementing a Client Appreciation Program to retain current customers and keep new clients coming back for more of your products and services.

1st Contact with a new or potential client: Send a thank you note thanking them for considering your business or for doing business with you. An added touch for a new client could be a $5.00 Starbucks card with the thank you note.

2nd Contact with a new or potential client: Send an email reminding them of what products and services they inquired about or purchased and how these products and services can help them with their project, business, or lifestyle. Offer an incentive to stay current on your business’s products and services by subscribing to your mailing list or newsletter.

3rd Contact with a new or potential client: Pick up the phone and see if there’s anything else you can help with or answer any questions they may have. This is a good time to ask for a testimony of their experience if they purchased products or services from you and also remind them of your referral program (if you have one in place).

30 days, 45 day, and 60 days after 3rd Contact: If this is a potential client, phone calls and emails are a great way to stay in touch with them again letting them know that you are here to help them in any way. Direct-mail campaigns can be utilized during these periods too. As for current customers, client appreciation programs work well during this time span. Send out thank you cards, referral reminder cards, or discount incentives cards. This shows your dedication and commitment to the success of their project, business, or lifestyle.

Weekly: An email newsletter can help your business stay fresh on the mind of potential clients and current clients. When you offer a tip or advice on how your business can be of service to them they will be more readily to call you.

Monthly: Offer a discount on products and services or an incentive prize if they signed up for an upcoming event or seminar that you may be giving. everyone loves winning something!

Every Quarter: Consider sending out a promotional product that your clients can use as well as show potential referrals how generous your business is. Remember to give out promotional products that best fit your business marketing plan.

All of these timeline don’t mean much if you haven’t given customers an easy way to buy. Offer a web address, phone number or order form/business reply card with each email, direct mailer, or campaign you send. Also make it easy to pay for your product or service by accepting credit cards, PayPal or checks online. Your business can create a sense of urgency every day through the tactics you put in place translating into more sales.

If you’re looking to start your monthly incentive promotions and need some help with getting started, just drop us a line so we can help you and your business be a great success with customer relations!

Onward and Upward!

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Get creative with promotional products

We've all seen those pens and tote bags embossed with the company logo. You may have also purchased some for your business to pass out at networking events or conferences. Although the thought of promotional products may seem “cheesy”, these ‘uniform delights’ are still a necessity to your business marketing mix. They come in handy to aid in the the launch of any new product or service and can help make that launch a memorable one for the customer and potential client.

Offering promotional items as a giveaway or prize is a proven effective method to attract new clients. Many businesses use custom printed promotional items to help build awareness of their business and what their business can offer a potential client. Building brand awareness is part of the marketing mix and this technique can motivate a current customer as well as a potential client to respond quicker to your incentive. Offer promotional products as an incentive prompting to purchasing products or services, signing up for something in advance or early, or referring someone to your business.

Ready to Launch a Promotional Product Campaign 

A fun and vibrant way to brand a business!

Now that you've reconsidered promotional products to aid with your incentive promotions, you can’t just go willy-nilly with ordering a whole bunch of products just because. There is a strategy to making this not only cost effective but worthwhile. Make sure you are aligning your business marketing strategy with what you’d like to accomplish from all this hard work. If purchasing promotional products to hand out at the next network mixer is to add to your new leads list, then how many products will you purchase to match the number of leads you have goaled your business to gain? I try to think in groups of “3.” If I’d like to add 30 new potential leads to my lead list, I may want to purchase 90 promotional products to guarantee myself those 30 new leads. If I am marketing to my current clients, my math should be to target the 20% of my current customers to yield an 80% growth of my business. It’s easier to market to your current clients because they are like walking billboards to your products and services.

Take time to select the right products to give out. If you are a new tutoring service in your area, pencils with your business name and web address would be a smart investment. It’s something your potential clients can use and will keep your business on top of their mind every time they use it. Depending on your target audience and the type of product or service you are trying to promote, make sure you use your logo and information you want them to use to contact you.

Plan Well 

What’s the main reason why companies lose customers? Guess what, more often than not it has nothing to do with price and most of the time it had nothing to do with the quality. Nearly 70% of customers who decided to no longer use a business’s products or services said it had something to do with “perceived indifference.” This is when your customers think you don’t care about them, that they aren't important to you or your business. Building customer loyalty is key for two reasons: 1) satisfied customers are the best source of quality referrals, and 2) your competitors are constantly targeting your best customers. Don’t let your business be “out of sight, out of mind.” It’s important that you keep your name in front of current customers and potential clients on a regular basis and with over a million items on which we can imprint your logo, you can find innovative ways to remind them about the value your business provides so why not do it with a gift-giving strategy!

 Send A Gift With Send Out Cards

 

How to Send a Card & Gift Tutorial from SendOutCards on Vimeo.

What’s It Worth To Your Business 

Promotional marketing products are an excellent way to re-establish contact and rekindle that relationship. Studies show that combining marketing literature with promotional products is one of the surest ways to make a good impression on prospective customers. Given how hard you work to get in front of someone for even a few minutes, what’s all this hard work worth to you monetarily? Think of your investment in Promotional Products as a 20% reduction in margin, or a 20% discount for your customers. The worth of a Promotional Product or the cost of a Promotional Product is directly linked to the return or use that you are able to get out of that item. If a $1,000 of expense is able to generate $10,000 of profit is the $1000 expense worth the $10,000 increase in profit to you?

Consider Social Media 

Many businesses use social media with their promotional products to get that multi-interaction effect. By printing QR codes or text “opt-in” codes to capture more buyer information or send them to a web page for more information. Some businesses imprint Twitter handles or Facebook pages on promotional products. Twitter and Facebook can add that “full circle” marketing strategy and make your business go viral at the click of a button!

Onward and Upward!

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Update your marketing materials

Update your marketing materials is success tip #2 of 5 ways to Promote Monthly Incentives to Grow Your Business. Although we do business in a digital world, never underestimate the power of good marketing tools like business cards, brochures, and flyers. You’d be surprised at how much they are needed especially when most of your marketing is word-of-mouth. What would you do if your smartphone suddenly decided to act up when you wanted to show off your new fancy mobile designed website? That business card you so smugly scoffed at would have come in handy especially if you had a QR code on it that could send that next potential client directly to your website!

Create Niche Business Cards

They say don’t put all your eggs in one basket so why are you putting everything you do on one business card? Yes, definitely have your main business card that has all your contact information on it but take this concept one step further with niche business cards! A niche business card is a custom designed mini advertisement of your products and services neatly composed on one card. You could definitely design your business card to display both a front and back image or make it multi-dimensional with the use of QR codes or listing a hyperlink to a landing page where potential clients can get more information. Try magnetic business cards or those that serve a purpose like adding a calendar or a place to right in an appointment to the backside.

Along with making your business card stand out from the rest, create or update your brochure and brand it alongside your business card or design it as an extension of your business cards. Get creative and take your brochure digital by designing a digital version of your brochure as a website. How about redesigning an existing website as an incentive promotion that entices current customers to repurchase products and services. Use your business cards and brochures as promotional products equipped with discounts and coupons that can be given away at networking events you attend.

Make Business Cards with Send Out Cards

Have you considered Send Out Cards for your next set of business cards? Send Out Cards not only helps you with designing custom greeting cards and postcards, they also take that fine quality printing one step further with business cards. That same process of utilizing their templates or uploading your own images can be used to produce quality business cards.

   

Onward and Upward!

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Retain Customers with Simplicity. Promote Monthly Incentives

Plan. Run. Succeed. 

Running a successful business incentive program is all part of running a successful business. In fact, when designed properly, a monthly incentive program can be one of the most powerful business tools available to marketing a business today. According to the experts, the return on investment (ROI) from a properly ran incentive program can boost incremental sales as well as market share. Got some products that need some help moving? Word-of-mouth not traveling fast enough? Launching monthly Incentive programs can speed up your marketing efforts as well as “up” the value of your business brand.

U.S. companies spend approximately $30 billion a year on incentive award programs, according to a study from the Incentive Federation. In order for your business to stay relevant and on the mind’s of your clients, incentive programs are essential to a business's marketing mix.

Before starting an Incentive Program for your business, take the time to plan out the reasons for the program and what you’d like to achieve (the end results). Here are five questions to ask & answer:

• What are you wanting to gain: 
• Collect leads 
• Discount products or services to drive revenue 

• Who is the target audience? 
• Customers (New or Current) 
• Clients who haven’t purchased in a while 
• A group of potential customers that have never been targeted before 

• What will be your lead incentive for the month: 
• Free Samples 
• Coupons 
• Drawing to win products or services 

• What is your available budget? 
• Will you use direct mail 
• Email Newsletters 
• In-store promotions 
• Social Media 

• Will you run the promotion in-house or hire an outside promotional agency? 

Are you Compliant 

Make sure whatever monthly incentive program you are running complies with the law. For instance, the Federal Trade Commission states "when a "free" offer is tied to the purchase of another product, the price of the purchased product should not be increased from its regular price." If you are offering a free gift with a purchase or for signing up for a product or service, be legit. Nobody likes to be a sucker so be authentic with you offerings so your customers continue to come back , tell friends, and participate in your incentives.

5 Successful Ways to Promote Monthly Incentives to Grow Your Business 

Okay! So lets get to it! Here are 5 ways you can be successful with promoting monthly incentives to grow your business:

1. Give away a free sample 
2. Update your marketing materials 
3. Get creative with promotional products 
4. Launch a direct-mail campaign 
5. Start a client appreciation program 

Give Away a free Sample

Giving away a free product or service is a sure-fire way to bring attention to your business. Making these promotions available to prospective and current customers can bring excitement and marketing value to whatever you plan on spotlighting for the month ultimately resulting in driving sales. The purpose for these free gifts is two-fold. One, the free item(s) function as a advertising the company’s products and services and Two, item(s) continually stay present on the minds of existing customers and appear “shiny” and new to potential clients. And here’s a third purpose…. It helps to build customer loyalty. Your giveaway should be tantalizing and be packaged in a way that your current customers should want to partake in the incentive even if they've already bought into it. Look over your products and services and see what you could promote each month as a free giveaway. Don’t limit yourself to just your products and services. Maybe you could offer a free consultation or offer some part of a service you offer as a “freebie.” However you position it, design your monthly incentives to be practical yet fun marketing opportunities.

Send a Free Card 

If you've received one of our weekly newsletters, you may have noticed a great FREE incentive we've offered to our subscribers. Have you sent a FREE custom greeting card on us lately? If you have not, here’s a great opportunity to do so. As you know Send Out Cards is a fabulous business opportunity that Team Pure Intent is a part of and is a great enhancer to any business’s marketing mix and income stream. Take a look at what you could send out FREE on us today!

 

SendOutCards Products from SendOutCards on Vimeo.

Onward and Upward!

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Get them Talking

You deserve the reward of having loyal and satisfied customers. When they take it upon themselves to tell everyone about the excellent work that you do, new customers want to become clients with ease and your business marketing efforts won’t be as hard tasked making a successful business. Before scoring any testimonials, commit yourself to not only providing the best possible product/service, but also you need to strive to go above and beyond your customer’s expectations each and every time. There’s nothing like hearing about a “job well done.”

   

Leverage Testimonials 

Collect Testimonials from Past Clients 

If you have been in business for a while but have never collected testimonials, then start by making a list of all of your customers who have used or are currently using your products and services. Make calls and follow up with emails requesting if they’d be willing to give a testimonial about their experience. 

Ask When Offering a New Business Product or Service 

When you are offering a new service or just starting your business, start by contacting business associates, past customers, and/or friends to offer them a free session or sample product to try. Then, ask them for a testimonial about their experience. 

Quantity vs. Quality 

For testimonials to be an effective marketing tool, they should be chock full of specific benefits that support the claims you are making about your products and services. When was the last time you saw an advertisement about dieting products without a picture of the before and after? No one would try it without a tried-and-true testimonial. Whenever you can provide a testimonial that has quantifiable results it only boosts credibility of that product or services ability to do what it claims to do.. For example, “I saved $500 on my car insurance by switching to...,” “We cut waste by 13% once we took the workshop on recycling by Waste Management,” “Our company increased our revenue by $250,000 last year after applying the tips given to us by Ms. Scott’s Consulting Firm,” and so on. 

Take some time to cultivate the testimonials you've received and begin to generate more quantifiable testimonials. Position your marketing to “sing” the praises of your products and services and get more automatic sales. 

Onward and Upward!

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Untapped Marketers

If you are a business owner, builder, or even a newbie to enterprise, you’ll soon learn how powerful testimonials are to your business. Testimonials come from all aspects of your business like employees, customers, team members, or board members. Basically all that either use your company’s products or services should be “testifying” about how great (or bad) their experience has been.

Your satisfied customers, employees, team members, etc. are an untapped marketing asset that can give a boost to your business. Using their testimonials to describe how a products works and its benefits is an inexpensive way of displaying evidence of your company’s worth and convinces new customers, employees, and team members to purchase or better yet become loyal fans.

Get Social Proof 

The most accurate way to explain the potential of a testimonial is through the concept of “social proof.” Social proof is what happens to products and services when people tend to believe what others think about something. Customers will be less hesitant to purchase your products and services if a current customer recommends your business to them.

Ask for Feedback 

Not all of your customers will give their feedback so you’ll need to give them opportunities to provide you with their testimonials. Here are three simple questions to prompt testimonials:

1. Did you receive any benefits from the products and/or services my business provided? 
2. Did you have any reservations initially about the products and services before trying them and what are your feelings about them now after trying them? 
3. Would you recommend these products and/or services to a friend and if so, what would you say to convince them to try them out? 

You’ll be able to market your business, strengthen your branding, build credibility, and strengthen your reputation with testimonials! 

It’s a good idea before you start marketing campaigns with your testimonials to ask your customers for permission to use them in your marketing efforts like your business website, social media, or offline marketing like brochures and flyers. Once you have permission, use images with the testimony (If you have permission to use their photo even better) to convey a humanistic side. With testimonials, you’ll be able to market your business, strengthen your branding, build credibility, and strengthen your reputation. Another way to social proof is to ask or post testimonials on your social media pages like Facebook and Twitter. If you are confident enough, you could post a testimony that could be deemed as “bad” and answer it with a solution to fix whatever the customer may have been unhappy with.

What efforts are you using to get testimonies for your business? 

Onward and Upward!

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It Takes a Village of Customers to Raise a Business. TESTIFY!!

 So you have this exciting business opportunity.  You've been telling your friends and family, "Hey!  I've just started this new and exciting venture and I would like for you to check it out."  You begin your journey learning the products and/or services and you can't wait to get them out there in front of someone.  Guess what?  You get your first sale!  Hip, Hip, Hooray!!

You are on fire!  You tell a few more, and a few more, and a couple more sign up.  Your are feeling real good that you've accomplished your goals, but something happens... A new potential customer asks you, "What has been the response of others in regards to your products and services?"

You've gotten so good at hearing "I LOVE THE PRODUCT" you are stunned.  That potential customer continues to ask questions like, "What are some of your customers, clients, subscribers, or distributors saying about the products, services, and company?"  To your dismay you've been so focused on selling and bringing on new team members that you haven't inquired about how others are using the products and services as well as how the business is serving them?

Testify!

This week we will take a good look at testimonies and how crucial they are to have ready at your disposal especially for moments like these.  Testimonies are one of the major keys to your success.  You may have the best products, presentation, solution, and business income plan but giving a testimony about the experience that is not your own can help someone who may be looking for additional streams of income and need to see how this potential opportunity could fit in to their lifestyle.

Here is a hilarious testimony video that I found on youtube that I know you'll enjoy!  This young boy received a box of fudge brownies and card to celebrate Halloween.  Please send in your testimony video links on facebook in regards to your products and services or leave your comments if you have a Send Out Cards testimony you'd like to share!

Onward and Upward!

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Start. Complete. Repeat.

This week we touched on the importance of setting goals in our business as well as in our personal lives. Within our day-to-day planning we can plan out what we’d like to experience, set a course to achieve it, and maybe share with others how we did it so they too can do the same. Getting a better understanding on what a goal is and setting ourselves up for success to achieve it made us realize the possibilities of some loopholes that could present itself and what to prepare for if plan A doesn't work out the way we planned.

Goal Setting: Why? 
Goal Setting: Plan For Everything 
A Goal Setting Mindset 
Evaluating Goals 

Set up a specific date to evaluate 

Now that you've gone through all this trouble to create goals and set them according to a timeline, the next step is to evaluate your progress. If your goals are not testable, then they are not measurable leaving you to question if they are concrete goals or not. Evaluating your progress helps you stay on top of your efforts and points out those areas that may need a little tweaking.

Goals are concrete but flexible plans to accomplish your dreams 

Give Yourself a Way to Measure your Progress 

Keeping track of how much time and energy you spend on attaining goals are simplified when you log them in one place to document your activity. Use a composition book or designate a binder with loose-leaf paper to write down your goals and track your status. Logging your activities and looking back on them on a consistent basis can inspire you to keep going even when you are experiencing little to no results. Whatever your goal is, you need to figure out how to measure your progress and document your successes and/or trials.

Expecting Results? Inspect what you Expect. 

The two ways you can evaluate your goal setting progress is to evaluate your progress daily and then to evaluate your progress monthly or quarterly. With this attention to detail, you’re sure to gain success with any goal you set out to achieve. Every one to two weeks, give some time to answer a few questions:

• Are you sticking to the plan? 
• How can your plan be improved? 
• Have you needed to use Plan B? 
• If so, how did that work out for you? What did you modify? 
• Has the outcome of your results met up with your initial expectations? 
• If so, explain. If not, why? 
• What measures will you take to meet those expectations? 

The monthly or quarterly evaluations should be focused on your long-term progression rather than your short-term progression. Answer these questions:

• Are your plans moving you in the right direction? If so, explain. 
• Is your ultimate goal still the same, or are you considering a change in direction? 
• Can you think of any ways to improve upon your original plans? 
• Have your business goals crossed over into your personal goals and vice versa? 
• What are you learning about yourself through this process? 
• Which of your qualities and habits still need improvement? 
• Are you beginning to think of even larger goals you can achieve now? 

Setting goals is crucial to any business, but it’s only the first step. To be successful in achieving those goals, you have to constantly evaluate them to determine if they’re validity and measure your progress toward them. Above all, you won’t be able to achieve your goals without a plan, but you can’t create a workable plan until you've evaluated your goals to ensure they are worth the effort.

Onward and Upward!

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