Monthly Archives: December 2009

Some may mistakingly think that the quality of their product or service is the most important aspect of their business, but they are dead wrong. There are a lot of average products or services out there in the market place that make a whole lot of money due to effective marketing and sales. It is selling that is more important. Either the business owner does it or they must hire salespeople that can do it for them.

For the small business, sales is a time consuming process that involves reaching out to prospective customers, meeting with them, explaining your product or services’ benefits, answering follow up questions, and asking for the order. You cannot afford to become complacent when it comes to your business cash flow. Without it, the doors close permanently. It simply is not enough to sit at ease in your office or store front waiting for customers to magically appear.  You must pursue them relentlessly with taste and tactfulness.

The customer already expects a quality service or product from you so you are wasting your time if you are putting quality ahead of sales. Just because you build a better mouse trap does not mean that people will buy it. How can they buy something that they have not heard of? It is not enough to have a website, some brochures, nice business cards, and a fancy office. You must actively promote and sell your business nonstop.  This means making cold calls, calling old customers, placing targeted ads, creating radio spots, running adwords campaigns, and the list goes on. As a small business owner, you must continually, without deviation, pursue the potential customer  through referrals, introductions and appointments. Always keep in mind that quality is not job #1. It is Sales that are the #1 job in the company.

When it comes to running a small business, there will be no shortage of tasks to perform and things to buy. However, you must prioritize in order to be an effective and successful small business owner. Otherwise, you may find yourself working for someone else.

Here is an ordered list of priorities. We call it “The Small Business Priority Manifesto.”

1. Never let off the gas pedal when it comes to selling and marketing your products and services

2. Retain current customers

3. Increase the number of customers

4. Send estimates, bill clients and conduct collections

5. Maintain available cash or credit for expenditures

6. Meet payroll

7. Hire great people

8. Be sensitive to employees’ needs and ideas

9. Invest in your staff by training them

10. Offer an excellent product or service coupled with fantastic customer service

11. Know how your products and services differ from your competition

12. Set obtainable goals

13. Delegate tasks that someone else can do better

14. Treat trusted suppliers and lenders warmly

15. Review expenditures over $999.99 thoroughly

16. Complete tasks now that must be dealt with before they turn into a nightmare. In other words, do not procrastinate what’s important.

When you share your tweets with all of your followers, make sure that you include a “human side” to your posted messages too. It’s acceptable to let followers know some more personal non business  information such as, I just got out of a boring meeting, I can’t wait for the weekend, I lost my keys, I forgot to buy my wife’s birthday present,  I was late to work, I am going to my kids play, or I  just picked up Starbucks. I think you get the point here. By doing this, you will make your business more relatable to clients.

Besides posting your own posts on Twitter, you can share useful tweets with others. This is known as retweeting, and it is a vital part of the social experience within Twitter. When you are retweeting, you are sending tweets to your followers that you basically are endorsing that others have posted. Retweeting goes well beyond just giving someone credit for a good Twitter post. By doing it, you are letting your followers know that you value this person’s opinion, or you like this post, or you find this tweet helpful and informative.

The other side of retweeting is when others retweet you tweets. This can help you get your message out to the Twitter world much faster.

There are many people utilizing Twitter for business and marketing purposes. This includes marketing experts, writers, authors, public relations departments, and celebrities. More importantly, Twitter is full of peers and potential customers.

Currently, there are many misconceptions to who uses social media. When it comes to Twitter, it is commonly believed that Twitter users are made up mostly of “Generation Y” users which  is made up of adults between the ages  of 18 to 27.

However, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Twitter users are mostly made up of “Generation X” which are adults ages 28 to 45. The median age of a Twitter user today is 31 years old. Now what does this mean to your business, well for starters, you know who you are reaching within Twitter, and with just a little research, you can figure out their needs, spending patterns, and how to reach them at their point of decision.

On Twitter, people “follow” one another. When you follow someone on Twitter, their tweets appear  on your Twitter timeline which is part of your Twitter account. You will not need their approval to follow them, as long as their account is a public account and not private. You can follow friends, family members, movie stars, businesses, and a whole lot more.

Now, when it comes to marketing your business on Twitter, you want to get as many qualified followers as possible, as they can turn into customers. One of the best ways to get followers is to post useful information that will make others want to follow you. Once again, do not beat them over the head with your sales message because tweeple, Twitter people, will unfollow you very quickly and that is not our objective here. When marketing through social media, try to think of it as inviting a friend over for dinner and building a relationship over time that can lead to a sale. When your friend comes over to eat for the very first time, you should be more interested in getting to know him or her and not immediately selling to them. If you begin “pitching” them too soon, you risk losing not only a potential sale, but more importantly, a friend too.