About the Author: Barbara Hemphill, founder of the Productive Environment Institute, has been referred to by the media as “America’s Favorite Organizer“.

Some months ago I sent out the following e-mail to my top customers: “I believe that birthdays are important.  For that reason, I would love to know the day of your birthday (not your age!).  I don’t promise to send a card, but I do have a reminder system that will alert me to your special day, and I do promise to say a special prayer for you.”

I received more response to that e-mail than any communication I have sent out in over 30 years of business. Customers shared stories about how they celebrate their birthdays, special memories they have of past birthdays, or ways they celebrate other people’s birthdays.

This is a powerful marketing lesson.  During the past ten years of offering a training program for productivity consultants, I’ve discovered that the biggest challenge for many trainees is marketing.  Many of them say, “I hate marketing.”  As any successful business owner knows, regardless of the specific business you are in, you are in the business of marketing – so you had better figure out how to market, or get out of business!

When trainees ask me, “How should I market?” my reply is, “That is the wrong question.”  Instead ask, “How WILL I market?”  The good news is there are many ways to market, but keeping in touch with people regularly is, without question, one of the best.   More good news is that there are many ways to keep in touch:  newsletters, blogs, phone calls, greeting cards, e-mails, letters, teleclasses, social networking, webinars, and more.

Growing up on the farm in Nebraska, my father used to say, “Half of any job is having the right tool.”  One of the essential tools for every business is a well-managed database.  We use Infusion Soft because of its capability of totally automated marketing sequences, systems for tracking sales opportunities, and the interface with our shopping cart.

One of my favorite “marketing” activities is randomly calling someone from my database and asking how things are going.  In the thirty years I’ve been doing this, I could count the negative responses on the fingers on one hand – and still have fingers left over!  In these days of automation, customers long for the personal touch.  This morning I got a call from the pest control guy to ask about the service I had the day before. He closed the conversation with, “I just wanted to be sure you were getting the kind of service you need.  Have a great weekend.”  When a colleague asks me to recommend a pest control service, who do you think I’ll mention?

One of my favorite ways to stay in touch is personalized (physical) greeting cards.  Send Out Cards is an amazing company that makes that “personal touch” easy and cost-effective.  The founder’s story is a touching one.  His brother died suddenly, and he had not kept in touch with him.  As a result he started a company that would enable people to “never lose touch again.”   Their tag line is: “Changing people’s lives one card at a time.”  Here’s how it works:  You go to their website, which has a catalog of 5,000+ greeting cards.  Choose the card you like (or you can customize one yourself with your own photos and logo or have them make a custom card for you). Type in the message you want to send to the recipients, and Send Out Cards will print and  mail a physical card with a real stamp. It takes minutes, and the cost is a fraction of what it would cost to buy an equivalent card in a store.  You also have the option of including a gift.  (Try it out for yourself for free)

Research shows that the biggest reasons that a company loses a customer after a long time is apathy.  Obviously, this company knows that – and they want to be sure it doesn’t happen to them! Regardless of how you do it, stay in touch with your customers. Take advantage of the power of personal!

About the Author: Elinor Stutz is CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, International Author, Sales Trainer & Coach, and Motivational Speaker.

This is a typical scenario for most entrepreneurs.  Luckily, I had some great coaches to whom I will be forever grateful. Let me share a few tips I learned along the way that helped me to get clear on where I’m headed, to communicate that well and be seen as a leader in my field.

Business Development Tips:

1. In a quiet place, contemplate what you truly want, enjoy, and has the potential for making money.
2. If you have been in business for a while, of all the things you do, which utilizes your talents best, has potential for making money, and/or do you enjoy the most?
3. Focus on the top 3 revenue streams until they are steady and established.
4. If you only have 1 revenue stream, add 2 more that are complementary.
5. Set time aside each day to build at least one of the streams; sometimes by working on one it will affect the other positively.
6. Take an evening to plan your biggest vision for your major money-making activity.
7. Create medium sized projects to get to the big vision.
8. Create small sized projects to get to the medium sized projects.
9. Write weekly must-dos to achieve the smaller projects quickly and pay attention to whether you are accomplishing them.
10. Every day you must devote one-two hours to your bigger vision – I call this your “Daily Business Vitamins”.
11. Prioritize by appointments, bigger vision projects, smaller tasks.
12. This minute – write down the first big vision that comes to your mind and begin planning!

When you operate in the manner described above, you become highly efficient, finding more hours in the day. People will stop to ask how it is possible that you are achieving so much. You will feel much better about your business and begin to smile. I know because I went through this process myself.

The smile on your face says it all. Prospects, clients and everyone else will see you finally look happy and ask what’s new and take interest. A smile is actually (in my mind) another form of a marketing message and helps communicate that you have become a leader if not an expert in your field. You are well on your way!

Now add great customer service policies to your repertoire, and build relationships with everyone you meet. You will attract larger audiences to your business and close more sales.

About the Author: Elinor Stutz is CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, International Author, Sales Trainer & Coach, and Motivational Speaker.

The one key factor to keep in mind, when meeting with prospects and clients, is “commonality”. It is a well-known fact that people buy You. They have to like you and feel comfortable with you. The best way to increase your like-ability rating is to find what you have in common with the other person.

Tips for Developing Commonality:

1. Listen carefully to spoken words
2. Listen carefully for what is omitted
3. Question anything you do not understand
4. In-person carefully watch facial expressions & body language at all times
5. Social media – read the written words & between the lines
6. When you read or hear of a similar situation you experienced (one that brings fond memories), succinctly tell your story
7. Appropriate laughter or sharing of fun experiences builds your bond
8. Ask how you may work together
9. Ask the other person’s timeframe
10. Always follow-up!

When your mindset is focused on paying close attention to the other person and re-enforcing what they tell you, you will be communicating that you listened and you care. This, too, builds the bond and increases your opportunity for getting the sale. Your stories reflecting commonality attract the right attention and lead your clientele on the path of doing business together.

Working to build your relationships is a big part of your business development. Clients will market for you telling everyone how nice and good you really are. Commonality will help you enjoy the Smooth Sale!

SaaS (Software as a Service) is all of the rage in the start-up world.  Investors love the recurring revenue stream, and companies are beginning to love the ease of deploy and the low upfront cost for deployments.

But what is not always realized is that SaaS really needs a human component as a start-up software company.  A recent interaction at one of our portfolio companies really demonstrates this.  The first part of the email is a member of the start-up’s management team talking about the importance of human interaction.  The second part is an email from an actual customer.  NOTE: All names have been removed.

Manager’s Email:

Hello All:

As you all may or may not know, at least every 3 months every one of our customers gets a contact email and/or phone call from their account manager.  From these calls, we learn a great number of things and re-enforce our relationship.

I wanted to pass on this great email to demonstrate why this is so important.  XXXXXXXXXXXXXX was doing his usual account maintenance and got the response below.  The customer mentions an obvious product deficiency,  (NOTE: We hear this from at least 90% of the customers we speak to), but also mentions that our customer service is second to none.

Often, the human touch can overcome any product shortcoming. It is good to know that we have instilled a culture where the “Service” part of SaaS is executed upon.

Customer’s Email:

Hi XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for your email, it’s nice to know that when we purchase a product from a company such as yours that we actually get to deal with real people, and not automated computers!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX has done wonders for our school – more and more teachers are starting to use them for their course work and also to collaborate planning sessions amongst staff members as well as parents. We use them in a variety of ways, from course work, to an online newspaper, to parents signing up for interview times and, as I mentioned, teachers planning lessons with other specialists whom they may not get a chance to do so otherwise.

At the moment I don’t really have any queries, only a suggestion… Is it possible in the near future that INSERT FEATURE REQUEST will be completed? Just a query

Otherwise, I appreciate your email and look forward to continuing with XXXXXXXXXXXXXX in the future,