August 23rd, 2007
Do You Communicate With Your Customers Enough?
Everybody in business has plans to grow their business. There are many ways for this to happen; price increases, open new stores, add new territories, introduce a new product, merge with or acquire a competitor, are among the methods used. Even a very small business like mine can grow by hiring some recruiters. Even great companies can be fooled by sales growth thinking they have it going on when their base business is flat or losing sales.
Organic growth has become a challenge for most. How do you get more business from current customers? It involves sales. The profession of sales has evolved from, feature benefit sales to needs indentification selling. We have grown from trusted advisors to relationship selling based on trust and respect. In most situations, not all but most, the more contact with a customer the more opportunity to build trust and respect.
That is why I ask the question, do you call on your customers enough? I spoke to a leading sales manager from a top medical company. His reps have an average of 140 customers each. He expects them to call on their customers at least 1 time per month; this comes out to 7 calls per day, plus make new business call of 5 per day. Your new business calls are in person and hopefully some of your customer care calls as well.
How do you make the other calls? My man Chris Baggott, author of “Email Marketing by the Num8ers, makes a strong case for email as the best marketing tool ever. I use the phone a lot and email. Us bloggers understand how blogging can build community.Blogging is an under utilized tool for building business relationships. Companies like Compendium Software are at the forefront of providing software solutions to make blogging as simple as email.
I would like to know your thoughts on communication with customers and Organic growth within your business. If you blog for your customers, let me know how it is going for you. In today’s world time is precious and we have to be able to ensure our communication; in person, by phone, email or blogging is of value. If it is, you have a strong chance for business growth.
August 25th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Hey there JD,
Your thoughts on needs indentification
selling was a Great Hook in that Post.
I would like to see You drive some
nails on that JD.
Just as You mentioned, Blogs are swift in
the communications tools now days and
in my opinion, no one should be doing
business online without the aid of a Blog.
Example is that it use to be unheard of
from communications to show up in Search
Engine in less than 30 Day for common
communicators. That is without SEO Skills.
30 to 90 Days was the normal and could be
as much as Six Months in some Directories
and even Major Search Engines.
Using a Blog effectively 1-3 days
is all it takes with just a little
Understanding. Using Gmail we can see
the very minute a Keyword Phrase has
been listed in Major Search Engines.
Here is a point to consider JD since this Post is about communication with customers and Organic growth within your business.
Viral Marketing Illustrated
(Word of Mouth) (Buzz Marketing) has been
catapulted to a next level for sending
a Message Viral in communications these
days yet I’m still at awe about people
wanting Your comments on there Blog, Yet
it’s like pulling teeth to get the same.
How can that be, I’m baffled because
now abides faith, hope and love but
the greatest of these is love.
I still believe, Be Blessed always…Peace!
Did anyone hear that? Kind Regards.
August 26th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Jim your wisdom is a thing od beauty, I want to speak to you about commenting on your blog, I will connect this week
August 27th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Blogging is becoming more popular and everyone is doing it. I was watching the weather on our local news station and HE even has a blog. One thing I’ve noticed is that the number of African-Americans I talk to about blogging, have no idea what it is.
I talk to business owners and they are slow to realize its full potential in how it can be a useful marketing tool. The education process is slow, but that’s one of my goals as a blogger. I try to educate people and bring them in to the blogging community. It’s a great way to communicate with a large number of people at one time.
August 27th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Theo, how do you spell opportunity!! Blogging is it and we will miss the boat if we stay back