Given that a lot of companies aren’t even sure how to get a new customer in the first place, we’d say it’s a lot simpler to keep your current ones coming back. So what does it take to keep your customers coming back to you? A little appreciation, saying hello every now and then, and a few other very easy tasks.

Be Up Front and Honest About Everything

Don’t commit the mistake of under-charging for your work, but please make sure your customer is well aware of all charges. Make sure that you both know exactly what is expected out of every purchase, and you will be well on your way to creating a lasting bond.

Always Say Please and Thank You

Never tell a customer they have to do something. Nobody likes being forced. Always ask: “would you please send me that information as soon as you get a chance?” And then always remember to thank them for everything they do for you.

Thank Them For Their Business

I know we mentioned this just a minute ago, but it really is important. You should always thank a customer for their business. Make them feel really appreciated – they are, after all, putting the food on your table.

Give Them Something Extra When the Opportunity Arises

Going that extra little step will always pay off big time. Doing something extra, even if it’s really small, will show them that you honestly care about them. It will guarantee that they always turn to you when they are in the market.

Throw in That Personal Touch

This is where being a small business is a huge advantage. Big companies go to great lengths to make things look handwritten. It’s much easier for you – that trusty old pen and paper is just a drawer away. Also, remembering all of your customers names scores big bonus points (try that if you have a 1000 employee corporation).

Pay Your Customers a Compliment

Giving out compliments is good advice in general, and when it’s in a business setting it’s almost silly not to. The key with giving compliments is to make sure they are heartfelt and meaningful. If done properly, you’ll make your customers feel good about themselves and brighten their day a little. Pretty soon they’ll connect that happiness with you; and then you have a customer for life

Ask Them For More

You might be amazed with this one, if it’s done correctly. After you’ve finished working with a client or serving a customer, tell them that you enjoyed their company and would love to work with them again (notice the compliment thrown in there too). This little step can be extremely effective.

Following all of these may seem difficult at first, but with practice it becomes a lot easier. Start with one or two, and gradually build up until you’re using several of them with all of your customers. You will be amazed at how effective these tiny little measures can be.

Think about what you typically say to potential customers. Which words do you choose? Which angle do you take to stir their interest and sell your product? It’s very important to consider these things, since the words you choose can significantly influence your income.

Never Knock the Competition

One mistake many people make is knocking the competition in the hopes of boosting positive perception of their own business. It’s a bully’s attitude and one to avoid.

A better idea is to tell people why your product is good – better than the next business’s – without dragging them down in the gutter. By doing so, you show that you have integrity and respect for your competitors and that you believe in the value of what you sell.

Never Make People Feel Stupid

“You’re not doing that, are you?” Patronizing people is a common mistake. It makes people doubt themselves and feel embarrassed and silly. They haven’t done anything wrong. They just didn’t choose your products or services, that’s all.

Acknowledge that potential customers have been doing X action or using Y product and make them feel like this decision was fine – because it was. You can then point out how your product or service offers more value or better results.

Never Forget Initial Contact

When you’ve been in contact with a potential customer already and have a second opportunity, recall a detail about the initial encounter. Otherwise, you leave the customer feeling like he or she is forgettable – not a good feeling.

Want a trick for those moments when you just can’t remember a thing? Ask, “Did you have that shirt on last time when we met? No? Oh, well I really like the color. It suits you.” The person feels flattered and memorable – and may be more in the mood to listen to you!

Never Ask Too Many Questions

Some people try to determine the needs of potential clients by flinging out a hundred questions and hoping one sticks. Avoid asking too many questions; ask the right questions and listen to the answers.

Make sure that the questions you ask have to be answered by more than a yes or no. Pay attention to what the person says to determine needs, hopes and desires. Narrow in to what the person really wants and then provide it.

Never Seem Desperate

No matter how badly you want this consumer to become a customer, never appear desperate. Desperation turns people off and doesn’t sway many into becoming a loyal customer. Be confident, be honest, be forthcoming and be ready to let go.

Your goal in marketing is to create a positive and memorable consumer experience, even if the person didn’t become a customer at the moment in question. The more favorably people perceive your business or offerings, the more likely they are to think of you the next time they want to buy.

What’s Happening Right Now?

The first step in predicting the future is to get a firm hold on what’s happening in the present. The more knowledge and information you have to work with, the more likely it is you’ll spot an important pattern or emerging trend.

Look into your specific industry, your customer base, and entire markets as a whole. Find out what similar businesses are doing, look at trends from unrelated industries, listen to what people are saying, watch what people are actually doing.

You want to collect anything from this information that you think is significant. Don’t try to predict every trend at this point, just get a feel for what’s going on.

Where Do You Think Things Are Going?

Once you’ve taken all of your data and created a compilation of things you think are significant, it’s time to think about the future and where things are headed.

Pick any one piece or group of significant information, and logically walk through its future progressions. What will happen in 3 months, 6 months, a year, 5 years? What other things might it effect, and what will affect it, in the future? What other possible paths might the trend take?

Do this quick walk-through with each thing you think is important, and hopefully a clearer image of the future will emerge.

Which Trends Are Important For Your Business?

Spotting important trends is only one part of the battle—capitalizing on those trends is equally important. Which trends do you think will intersect with your business? How are you going to position and market your company to take advantage of them?

Being environmentally friendly is getting more and more popular, it’s a clear trend. How companies will effectively brand themselves as being green, however, is still completely up in the air.

A good bet can mean never having to work for anyone again, but a bad one can spell trouble. Remember to plan not only for your best-guess outcomes, but also for other alternatives that may or may not happen. Having a backup plan means you’ll be able to do well regardless of which way events unfold.

Color are very subjective and can have different meanings to different cultures. The background color of a website, the color of a header, the color of a text and headlines can all have a psychological impact on visitors. When color is used correctly, it can add impact and clarity to your message and highlight important points.

So what colors should we be incorporating into our website designs to ensure we convey the right message to our visitors? I have detailed a list of colors and their associated feelings and keywords so you can get an idea or what to put on your webpages. In Western cultures, the following colors are associated with certain qualities or emotions:

• Red : love, sex, passion, danger, warning, excitement, food, action, adventure.
• Blue : trustworthiness, success, seriousness, calmness, power, reliability.
• Green : money, nature, animals, health, healing, life, harmony.
• Orange : comfort, creativity, celebration, fun, youth, reliability, affordability.
• Purple : royalty, justice, ambiguity, uncertainty, luxury, fantasy, dreams.
• White : innocence, purity, cleanliness, simplicity.
• Yellow : curiosity, playfulness, cheerfulness, amusement.
• Pink : softness, sweetness, innocence, youthfulness, tenderness.
• Brown : earth, nature, tribal, primitive, simplicity.
• Grey : neutrality, indifference, reserved.
• Black : seriousness, darkness, mystery, secrecy,sophistication.
• Silver : prestige, cold, scientific.

When choosing colors for your site it is important to employ contrasting or sympathetic and complementary color schemes. It is important to identify your market and ensure the psychological message you are trying to get across with the rest of your site design, words and images is complemented and enhanced by the appropriate color scheme.

Often it can be wise to run samples of the same site with slightly differing color schemes past a test audience and see which has the best impact or you can even run differing colored sites to visitors and track conversions to your goals. Its really up to you how to try and test or track the impact of your psychological color message on your Internet Marketing.

Truth is personal branding is easier than company branding. Why? Because if you believe in your talent, skills and ability – it’s easier to sell what you believe in. Your image is already created and now you just have to market it. How do you market yourself? That’s easy. You must become a pro in your industry and an expert in your field.

With that said are there downfalls to personal branding? Absolutely. Unless you plan to work forever, it will be difficult to transition the brand to someone else. After all you are the brand. If you are alright with the fact that in order to transition out of the brand you will need to create a new one that your consumers can grasp onto then personal branding may just be for you.

When branding yourself remember that you must create a strong and consistent brand. You cannot skimp just because it’s about you. Strong brands are clear about who they are and what they are not; which is why branding yourself can be an easy process. You already know who you are and what you are not. Strong brands are also consistent; it’s easy to be consistent in who you are. By branding yourself effectively you will:

• Establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field.
• Build a solid reputation within your industry.
• Increase your notoriety and improve your perceived value in the marketplace.

The key to successfully branding yourself and doing it effectively is to first establish a personal brand identity. Once you have done that focus that message on who you are and what you stand for within your chosen field. Your final step is to get the word out through a variety of media channels that are viewed by the people most likely to be interested in your message.

People will begin to see your name and become aware of the benefit and knowledge that you offer. Before you know it, people will not only know who you are but they will begin to seek out your services and expertise. They will identify with your brand which is you.

Procrastination

Putting things off is a killer, especially where marketing is concerned. You need a plan and a time management system in place. Prioritize your tasks and keep lists of everything that needs doing. And no matter how much you don’t feel like doing something just get it out of the way and never leave it until the next day!

Striving for Perfection

You’ll likely never have a “perfect” website, product or service but you know what? It doesn’t matter! It’s important to get started as soon as practical to move forward. You can tweak things as you go along, and improvements will come later but if you try to get everything “right” before you go live then you’ll never get go forward.

Wasting Money

This one is important especially if you don’t have money to burn! Don’t get caught up jumping from opportunity to opportunity or buying everything that lands in front of you. You’ll be surprised how much you can get for free. You don’t need half the stuff you see out there. Try to control your emotions and think before you buy. Write a list of pros and cons, and make sure that the product or service is essential to you.

Not Spending Enough

Unfortunately you have to spend a little. It won’t be much starting out, but you will need more as you grow. The bulk of your expenses will be on promotion. If you’re paying someone to create your product or you’re buying resell rights then this is another expense.

Wrong Markets

This is a tricky one. If you are dead set on conquering a certain market you could end up on a long and expensive journey that is doomed to failure. Do some research first. A so-called niche market is a good find but only if this niche will spend money! Avoid choosing broad saturated crowded markets as your competition will be tight.

Lack of Growth

You must continuously grow yourself and expand your mind. Learning is essential. If you don’t you’ll be stuck with the same skills and ideas and you’ll never even notice when you are bogged down in complacency and routine.

Doing It Alone

You can do it alone but it is harder, and without support you are more likely to fail. It doesn’t have to be much. Online forums, for example, are an amazing source of ideas and encouragement. And with other people, by forming Joint Ventures or starting your own referral program you can really leverage your efforts and do far more than you could ever do on your own.

Going For The Small Money

Most likely, you are not going get rich selling $20 items. Try to include some higher priced goods and services in your marketing. You will get less sales but more profits. You won’t know if they sell until you try! However, don’t fall into the trap of selling anything because you get a high commission. Integrity is important too.

Separating Life and Work

One of the biggest pitfalls when working from home is the fact that life can encroach on your activities. Try to separate the two and have fixed times when you work and a set area to do it. Work doesn’t have to take over your life.

Be Ambitious

You won’t know unless you try. Assume you can do anything because you can! You may not be ready to do it yet, but don’t set up mental blocks in advance. You can create your own profitable items or services and have others sell them for you.

But how do you turn an ordinary client into a raving fan? All it takes is a little understanding of their wants and needs and some creative strategies for exceeding their expectations. Here are some ways to create raving fan customers who give the word-of-mouth marketing that your business needs to succeed.

Customize Your Approach To Their Problems

Learn as much as you can about what has been preventing your clients from getting the results they want in the past, and customize your marketing approach to highlight how you are the perfect solution. Instead of a typical “here are our available services” pitch, present yourself in a way that will make them take notice and say “This is exactly what we’ve been looking for!”

Create A Guide That Positions You As An Authority

Being seen as an authority is a powerful way to deliver the “wow-factor” to your clients that increases their desire to stay loyal to you (as well as the amount of business they bring your way). Creating a companion guide to your products or services is an excellent way to showcase your experience and to establish your position as a company who is on the leading edge. Add an extra layer of exclusivity by offering it only to current clients – just one more perk of doing business with you.

Master The Art Of Accessibility

One of the easiest ways to consistently impress your clients is to keep turnaround time on emails an phone calls to a minimum. In today’s world of poor customer service, having a swift response rate to client inquiries is a powerful way to keep them impressed and away from the competition. A quick tip on email – even if you can’t address a client’s needs immediately, reply to them and let them know you’ll get back to them soon. Reinforcing their feeling of being valued gives them another reason to be a customer for life.

Anticipate Their Future Needs

Your clients have a specific idea of where they want their business to go, but they may not be seeing all the options they have available to them. Talk with them and get a feel for how they plan to grow their business, and offer them advice or services that will make it easier for them to grow. Then connect them with the people who can help make those things happen. Open their eyes to ways they can make their business or their offerings stronger down the road, and they won’t forget how valuable it is to keep doing business with you.

Offer A Workshop That Gives Your Clients An Edge

Home improvement stores offer free do-it-yourself workshops to give customers a reason to shop at their store. Financial planners offer free investment seminars to educate clients on additional service options. Your business could do the same. Look at what it is that you sell, and consider the knowledge gaps your clients might have when it comes to choosing options or getting the most out of what they buy. Then offer a free workshop that closes the knowledge gap, and see just how much more your clients appreciate you.

Ask For Feedback After The Sale

The typical business follows up only when they have something to sell, but you can wow your clients by following up with a request to make their last transaction more satisfying. A simple phone call or email that follows up with the question “Is there anything we missed, or anything more we could do to make your experience better?” tells your clients that you are 110% committed to making sure they are treated fairly and respectfully – and that you’re not going to settle for letting them get anything less than the best from you.

Present Everything In Terms Of Value, Not Cost

If pre-sales marketing is all about presenting benefits, current-client marketing is all about presenting value. Each time you communicate with your clients, let them know what they are getting and how it benefits them. A client who receives “new logo samples,” for instance, is not going to be as impressed as a client who receives a package of “3 logo concepts shown in multiple layouts with original source files for editing.” Make sure your client understands just how much they are getting with each deliverable, and they will feel their money is well spent.

Reward Client Loyalty With Increasing Bonuses

Keeping clients long-term saves you the time and money of hunting down new ones, so why not pass some of that savings on to them? Offering clients some sort of bonus or discount periodically, just for sticking with you, is a sure way to impress – especially if the value of that reward keeps increasing. Whether you choose to give a discount that grows each year, or you throw in a free product or service here and there, these unsolicited gifts will make your clients hard-pressed to go elsewhere.

Give Your Clients Free Publicity

It’s not uncommon to feature your clients’ success on your own website to enhance your reputation, but have you considered boosting their reputation elsewhere? Consider working them to issue an online press release that showcases their company or have an article written up and submitted to a relevant publication or website. This “out of the blue” shot of publicity won’t cost you much, but will make the client remember you for life – and in many of their referral-generating conversations as well.

Under Promise and Over Deliver – Every Time

The surest way to lock a permanent “wow” into your customer’s mind is simply to exceed their expectations, every time. Don’t over promise. Be realistic and focused when telling them what you’ll deliver and when they should expect it. Then go the extra mile to make your deliverable impressive and on time (or better yet, early). This is simply the easiest way to secure your reputation – the very currency of marketing itself – and virtually guarantee a stream of revenue from your current clients, and the clients they refer to you in the future.

Every great brand carries with it a number of features that give it a marketable “wow factor” – that impression of excellence, commitment and quality that invites clients to pull up a chair and stay forever. To make your brand great, incorporate these strategies into your everyday marketing plans. You’ve got what it takes to “wow” your clients every day – it’s time to get to it!

Supposedly, we are pretty much hard-wired to respond favorably when one or more of these words are used. But is all of that just hoopla? Or do certain words actually make a huge difference?

Some Words Do Work Better That Others

When you get right down to it, some words really do work better than others. If you pick any given time frame, you can usually find a few of these “magic” words—words that are being used very effectively to market and sell things. But there’s a big catch: the “magic” sales words are changing constantly.

As the general opinion of the populace changes, so to do the words that work best when selling. Your market is being bombarded with sales pitches and advertisements constantly, and their opinions and ideas are changing very rapidly as a result. What is cool and trendy one week might suddenly be a big looser the next.

How to Find the Magic Words

Finding the special words at any point in time isn’t very difficult in theory. In practice, doing this yourself will take a lot of time and probably yield mediocre results. Here’s how it is done:

• Find a good source of sales data
• Select a category and sample the top 50 or so items
• Graph the popularity of words used in ads for those items
• Repeat for several data sets and correlate with time
• Analyze the graphs and pick words that are trending up

As you can see, there is a lot of data collection and analysis involved. What makes it worse, this relatively simple analysis uses existing products and ads as data points, so if you are trying to be seriously ahead of the curve, this isn’t the way to go. In the end, finding the truly “magic” sales words can be very challenging. People pay marketing firms *cough* good money for the service, and even with all of our resources it still isn’t easy.

For Small Business, Sincerity is a Better Choice

Trying to stay ahead of the curve with sales letters and persuasive words is like running a marathon—you constantly have to research, adjust and keep working. If you’re a small business, that time should probably be spent on more important things. Instead of trying to find special words that will “unlock your sales potential” try basing your sales strategy entirely on sincerity.

One of the most attractive things about buying from a small business is the level of sincerity and personalized service. Most of us automatically assume that big businesses will cut corners wherever possible, and that they are really only in it for the money. A small business that offers real sincerity and caring will out-compete even the most accurate and powerful “magic” words thrown around by the big businesses.

Explain Your Business in Two Lines

You have only a moment to explain what you do, but it can be hard to pare down an explanation to the details. Try starting with only a minimal explanation of just two lines. Focus on writing down what is unique about your business. You don’t need a perfectly formatted document; this draft is to get you to eliminate unnecessary words.

While you should mention what you do, how your business helps is actually more important than your particular methods. A professional speaker, for instance, wouldn’t just say that he gets up on a stage and talks. Instead, his pitch might include an explanation of the fact that he motivates employees to focus on quality — or whatever his speaking is supposed to achieve.

Add Some Excitement

If you aren’t excited about what you do, there’s no reason anyone else should get excited either. There was some sort of passion that lead you to get involved with your business; let it show through. In some cases, your reasons may be your elevator pitch.

Do you see a particular need for your services? Focus on that need, and a passionate pitch might just write itself. Results are another easy way to get excited about your business. Think about the numbers you celebrate — the milestones for your business.

Test Your Pitch

Find a few people that will listen to your pitch and give you feedback. Ask them what terms they didn’t recognize, where it was boring and where it was exciting.

Your listeners’ questions about your pitch are especially important. You don’t necessarily want to answer every question about your business in your pitch — getting prospective customers to ask a few questions is a great way to hook them — but if a test subject has no idea what you do after listening to your pitch, it’s back to the drawing board. It may take a couple of tries to come up with a pitch if your business isn’t particularly common.

Adapt to the Situation

You don’t give your elevator pitch in a vacuum. It’s always part of a conversation. Your conversational partner probably has some specific needs that your company can help with — and he or she may have already described them as part of the conversation.

If you’ve already heard those specific needs, respond to them. Tell your listener exactly what you can do to help him; being specific is what can take an elevator pitch from the “I’ll be in touch” level to the “I’m calling you first when I get back to the office” level.

Be Open to Change

Your elevator pitch is not carved in stone. If you come across a better explanation of what you do, you ought to include it in your pitch. It’s even worthwhile to test out multiple versions of your elevator pitch and make changes based on the result. And if your business changes, it’s important to make sure that your elevator pitch reflects those changes.

Find a Niche

For small businesses, it is best to find a niche. A small company with limited resources can efficiently serve niche markets. Concentrate your efforts on a fairly narrow market offering. This entails sticking to what you do best, and becoming an expert in that field.

Realize that it is not possible to be good at everything. By concentrating on a fairly narrow market niche, you may be able to avoid head-on collision with bigger competitors. If you are a hardware store selling everything from paints to lumber, the entry of giant retailers like Home Depot in your area can spell the end for your business. However, you can try to limit your offering, for example, to construction of porches and decks and be the best retailer for this segment.

Be Small, yet Think Big

The most common question of small business start-ups is “How can I compete with my big competitors?” Small businesses have inherent advantages over big businesses, including flexibility, ability to respond quickly, able to provide a more personalized service. Make sure that your business takes maximum advantage of those areas that represent the strengths of small companies.

Differentiate Your Products

Present the benefits of your products and services to your customers, highlighting the unique solutions it offers to their problems. Avoid being a copycat; rarely do imitators succeed in the market. Study, but do not copy your competitors, and package your products distinctly.

First Impression Counts

Strive for accuracy and quality the first time around. You often do not have a second chance to make a good first impression. This entails a well-laid out store, courteous staff, and personable voice over the phone, etc. However, if you are a one-person business working in a home office, remember that you are the center of your business and marketing efforts.

Everyone you come in touch with is potentially a client or a referral to another client because they are either impressed with you as a person, impressed with your skill at providing a certain service or product. Make sure that you are always presentable, professional in your ways and knowledgeable about your business.

Good Reputation

Your business hinges on its reputation. It is imperative that you build a good reputation for the quality of your products and support services. Remember that two things guarantee success: high quality goods and superior service. Always aim for quality. If you are a tax consultant, strive to prepare a totally accurate, perfectly done tax returns for your clients.

Constant Improvement

Entrepreneurs know that they should not be rigid in their ways of thinking in their quest to improve their best products and services. You risk being left behind by the fast-paced competition if you cling to the “this is how we’ve always done it” kind of thinking. The business environment today demands that you need to come up with new solutions ­ fast!

Listen to Your Customers

Be market driven: listen and react to your customer’s needs. Customers need to feel that they are important to you ­ because they are! When you focus on your customers and gain their trust, they will not only recommend you but they will also remain loyal to you. Remember, personal recommendation and word-of-mouth are the least costly yet most effective marketing strategy for your business.

Plan For Success

An entrepreneur should understand the power of planning. A good plan helps you increase your chances of succeeding and can help you define your business concepts, estimate costs, predict sales and control your risks. It tells you where you are going and how to get there. Going into business without a plan is like driving into a foreign land without a road map.

Be Innovative

Innovate your offerings constantly, keeping pace with technological changes. Use change as a springboard to improve your products, procedures or reputation. Innovation should also cover your operations ­ from pricing, promotion, customer service, distribution, etc. Keep your eyes for new ways of doing things, and apply those that can improve the quality of your products and efficiency of your operations.

Work Smart

As an entrepreneur, you need to possess self-confidence, plus a never-ending sense of urgency to develop your ideas. Studies have shown that the individuals who succeed in entrepreneurship are far-sighted and can accept things as they are and deal with them accordingly. They know how to manage their time, realizing the importance of leisure in as much as work.

These people are oftentimes quick to change directions when they see their plans are not working. More importantly, they recognize their weak points and move on to nurture alliances and acquire the skills they need to put their business on the right track. They realize the importance of working smart, knowing that it is not the quantity of work you do, but what you do and how well you do it.