Great business teleseminar – 5 deadly mistakes you can’t afford to make in this economy

I thought this would be great info for the South Orange County chamber blog, hopefully Rick and the Productive Learning and Leisure team won’t mind!  Rick Itzkowich was our featured speaker, and his company Productive Learning and Leisure fully admit they have made ALL of these deadly mistakes, and survived them, so it will be nice for us to be able to take some advice as opposed to taking some hard knocks   Thanks for sharing, Rick! 

Mistake #1 – treating sales and marketing the same. 

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE!!!!  Sales is not marketing.  Marketing definition:  getting people who have a need for your product and service to know you, like you, and trust you, so they can buy from you.  They need to know you have their best interest at heart, and a prodcut or service on hand that fills their needs.  Sales is more a short term in focus, and marketing is a long term strategy. 

For example, take networking.  Many people are in the Chamber, BNI, or LeTip groups.  Networking is marketing, NOT sales.  Go there to build long term relationships, not to sell.  If you go with a sales mindset, you’ll get a couple sales… but you’ll turn a lot of people off.  Just focus on getting people to know you, like you, and trust you.  Build that solid foundation. 

Businesses in this economy need to continue to sell AND market, or risk living month to month forever.  If you market and don’t sell, you’ll fail.  If you just sell and don’t market, you’ll always barely scrape by.  Is that where you want your business to be for the long term?  Of course not!

Mistake #2 – the acronym OOSOOM.  Out of sight, out of mind. 

There’s a famous Visibility, credibility, and profitibility model called VCP.  You need to stay visible, and be out there.  Credibility involves building trust, and being consistent.  Profitibility will come after you are visible and credible.  Don’t expect to be profitable if you have issues with visibility or credibility!

Ready for some stats?  The Ultimate Sales Machine book states only 3% of people are in the market to buy your products or services at any time.  7% are open to buying your product or service right  now.  So that totals 10%, The remaining 90% don’t pay attention, are not interested, or are happy with your competitor.  So in a nutshell, its a numbers game and you need to be in front of a lot of numbers. 

***Angie’s side note*** this is why organic SEO is SO IMPORTANT!   It weeds out the other 90% and gets you the needle in the haystack!  You’re getting in front of those 3-10% online who have searched for you, typing in a phrase that indicates they want to do business with you. 

Rick told a story of his BNI meeting where OOSOOM was painfully true.  There was a guest who came in for ink cartridges and Rick needed some new ones.  Obviously, Rick was in the 3% who wanted it now, so he decided to buy.  BUT, when the time came to renew for the cartridges, 8 months later, Rick couldn’t remember the cartridge guy’s name or his business, and he ended up buying from someone else.  Rick would have bought 100’s of dollars from the same guy if he stayed in touch, but instead those dollars went to competition.

Mistake #3 – Focusing on customer acquision and forgetting about retention. 

Most businesses are worrried about getting new customers, and they ignore keeping the old ones.   Yes, new clients are exiciting.  But you can’t think of your existing clients as old news.   Make sure to build your business goals around new AND old clients.  Don’t take your existing clients for granted, they are always your best resell or upsell opportunity! 

More stats:  79% of small biz owners have NO formal customer retention policy in place.  Do you have one?  Over a 5 yr period businesses may lose as many as HALF of their customers.  Aquiring a new customer can cost 6 to 7 times more money than to retain an existing one.   A small investment in customer retention pays GREAT dividends.  Sometimes its just getting the clients to hear from you.  Many times they think you don’t care, and then they leave

Mistake #4.  THIS IS A BIGGIE!  Trading time for dollars. 

Do NOT trade your time for dollars.  Most small business owners don’t have a business, they have a glorified job.   How do you know?  Well, if you go on vacation or get sick, and you don’t have any money or resources coming in, then you’re working a job you call a business. (sorry, we’ve all done it)  REAL Businesses still earn money if the owner is not performing the work themself.  Formulate your business systems so they generate passive income.  Rick mentions having other people selling your product or service, or even your website.  If you are doing all the work yourself, you have NO EQUITY.  You’re the only asset in your business, and that’s not a business at all.  Sometimes a barter can’t be avoided or is in your best interest, but be careful! 

Rick mentions Michael Gerber (LOVE HIM!!) and his Emyth concepts.  You need work ON your business, not in it all the time.  If you only ever work in your business then you’re honestly stuck in a job.  Yes, you need to do both, obviously!  But most people just work in it and wear too many hats.  Consider outsourcing, and remember time = money.  If your constantly working 40 hour weeks then you don’t have any more time to offer trades.  Really, RELATIONSHIPS = MONEY.  Try to build relationships with influential people in your industry and think of how much that one person could do for you.  It only takes a couple power partners to really take your business to the next level. 

**Another Angie note – its nearly impossible to work ON your business when you’re so busy in it.  What Angela and I do, which helps tremendously, is block out time for this.  No, not just “every Friday”… its way to easy to let yourself off the hook   We schedule her Trendwest timeshare at least quarterly, and we GO AWAY for the entire week (autoresponders on and all) to work ON the beast called Cal Coast Web Design.   If we didn’t do this, we’d already be out of business, I guarantee it.  By no means are we experts, but hey we’re still here after 5 yrs and that says something***

Mistake #5 -  Having no follow up or stay in touch systems in place. 

Most people go network on a regular basis, BUT, they never bother to follow up or keep in regular contact to stay front of mind.  You need a structured follow up system in place!  This isn’t only true of new prospects, but also of old people from the past.  You come out with new products, don’t you?  Don’t you think that some of your old trusted clients would enjoy the upgrade too?  A recent survey showed that almost 50% of the small businesses don’t collect email addresses from their customers. And of those who do, a large percentage don’t have a systematic way to stay in touch with them.

Are you making any or all of these mistakes?  If you are, you’re in for some rough times with your business, and you will lose some business to your competition in this market. 

But wait!  Here’s help on the horizon!  Rick offers a fully automated contact tool that can help you before you have to learn the hard way.  They’ve got great results and rave reviews – its called quoteactions.   This is an automated campaign that communicates with daily emails.  There’s a motivational or interesting quote, and an action that brings it to life.  All quotes and actions are pre-written, and they are tested for success.  You can be up and running with Quoteactions in less than 30 minutes.  Fees are really reasonable, less than a dollar a day.. and there is no risk or obligation – even a 60 day $$ back guarantee!  Pricing starts at just $24.95 a month, and there is a small set up fee.  Check out www.quoteactions.com for more details and to sign up or email rick@productivelearning.com .  

Q & A time:

Q.  What’s the best balance between sales and marketing? 

A.  Do 80% marketing and 20% selling if possible.  If you need to make sales right away, though, then flip that and do 20% marketing and 80% selling. 

Q.  Does the quote action bug people when they see it every day? 

A.  Possibly, but most people opt to receive messages 5 days a week, even when they have the option of less.  They’ve researched the stats, and less than 10% of the people who get the messages unsubscribe.  The messages are short and sweet so they don’t tend to be annoying, and the system is also a double opt-in so everyone is happy to get the emails. 

Q.  How do we get our people in the system?   

A.  There isn’t much for us to do here, we just need to send the excel database to Rick to import…they knew they had to make it easy for their clients. 

Well, that’s it because the office is a bustle – its hard to take an hour out in the middle of the day   Thanks again to Rick Itzkowich and the folks over at Productive Learning and Leisure for these great tips.  Hopefully everyone reading will comment their appreciation! 

Orange County Bookkeeping Services and Email Marketing

Kim Hutchinson offers At Your Service Bookkeeping.  She’s a certified quick books pro advisor.  Kim can help teach your staff quick books or do it if you need outsourcing.

What makes Kim bookkeeping services different?  First of all she continues her education with quick books each year so your books are the best they can be.  She doesn’t give tax advice but she has her accounting degree and she can talk the right talk with your CPA.  Also, she travels!  And she keeps your info in the strictest confidence.  In addition, she will pass all her discounts down to you instead of making money off of you like other bookkeepers in Orange County do.

Kim works with all types of personalities and can tailor services to your needs.  She truly is ‘at your service’ for all your quick books and quicken needs.  And YES she does quick books online!!!!

We also had the pleasure to hear from Jim Belzer.  He’s a major sports and music fan.  Right now he runs Infuse Agency which is an email and website program that helps market your business.

This is networking online and it helps you build your business.  One email will contain multiple businesses and it’s sent out to the community and locals who may want to do business with you.  Anyone can sign up and the monthly costs are very small for the exposure you will get. 

There are 4 components to effective email marketing:

1.  Email address list development and management

2. Email design and effective message and frequency.

3.  Compliance multiple service providers and spam filters. 

4.  Integration into your current advertising and website.