Isn’t doing business with your competitors crazy?

However, did you know that one of the quickest ways of attracting new clients to your business is to use other business’ databases?

And that even includes using your direct competitors.

Now I am not suggesting in the slightest that you are to break in to their offices overnight and steal their client information! But what I am suggesting is that you collaborate and look at what joint ventures you can create.

Joint ventures are when two [or more] businesses join forces to create a more powerful force in the marketplace. Think of as two heads are better than one.

Or more importantly, two databases are better than one!

Let me give you an example.

Jenny is a fitness trainer. She works primarily with her clients on a 1-2-1 basis but is finding it hard going fitting enough sessions in to her day whilst still generating the income that she is aiming for.

She has decided to start offering group sessions and fitness training programmes as a way of working with more clients, increasing her cash flow yet reducing the number of hours she works. But the big problem is her database. It’s just not big enough to market her programmes to.

So rather than spend hundreds of pounds on advertising in the local newspaper or even more on buying a database, she decides to seek out other businesses who have the clients she is looking for.

She approaches her local gym.  Some may think this is a crazy idea as her local gym is a direct competitor of her business, but the manager of the gym is interested in talking. Although they have staff working there, they haven’t really got their act together in regards to personal training sessions and motivating their members.

You see, although they have a strong membership at present, very few people are coming in and using the gym. And they know when this happens, they start getting lots of cancellations.

By offering the gym members a discount on Jenny’s fitness programme, this gives the gym a great benefit to add to their membership subscription without it costing them a thing. It should also encourage the members to train more in the gym in between Jenny’s sessions because they are more motivated to train by themselves now they feel fitter, thus reducing the chance of cancellations.

OK, so this story is hypothetical.  This could be too crazy for a lot of gym managers who just wouldn’t entertain this idea and turn Jenny down flat.

But we are in a very interesting economy at the moment. Sticking with the norm and assuming that a particular business will not want to talk to you is, well frankly madness!

Many businesses are experiencing huge slowdowns and one of the advantages to you is that slowdowns cause problems. If you can solve the right problems, it’s good for your business. And of course, good for the other businesses, too.

More and more businesses are looking at joint ventures and building collaborative partnerships – even with direct competitors! So doing business with your competitors really isn’t such a crazy idea.

The trick is being able to create an offer that benefits both parties, plus their customers.

If you are struggling to attract the right clients to your business, joint ventures could be the quickest [and cheapest] way of moving your business forward right now.

Who could you start talking to and create a win-win situation for you both?

Personalised emails and letters aren’t anything new.  Since the days of mail merge, it’s been relatively straight forward to insert people’s names where ever the magic code gets added.

However, as technology gets cleverer and cheaper, personalisation becomes more accessible for businesses like mine and yours.

Take the huge growth in personalised birthday cards, for example.  Moonpig hit the market a few years ago and now we’ve got sites such as Clintons and Funky Pigeon all jumping in.

Yesterday, I posted a video blog showcasing some clever marketing from Cancer Research that my husband received a few weeks ago.  Technology now even allows us to personalise videos!! Clever, if not a bit spooky.

But personalised videos may be stretching your budget!  It certainly isn’t something that I am looking at doing (yet!!).  So, how can you make your communication more personal?

Your email marketing

Always ask for someone’s name in your sign-up box:  First name is good. There’s no need to ask for surname too unless your business communicates tend to be in a more formal way ie Mr Smith rather than just Tom.  Ask for too much info as sign-up stage and you will create a “hassle factor” which will put people off rather than encourage.

Salutation:  If you send out an email newsletter, then you probably do this already.  But a simple Hi Tom at the beginning of your welcome section sets the tone.

Subject Headings:  Over use and this can be spammy, but sprinkle the odd first name merge code in your subject headings and it can make your email stand out in a bulging inbox.

In the body of the email:  Remember, you can use name merge codes where ever you like in your email.  Again, over use and this can be really spammy.  Think of it as a conversation you have with someone – you just wouldn’t keep using their name when speaking to them.  But use at points where you want someone to take notice, this can be very effective to jump someone in to action.

Your blog

OK, using names when someone visits your blog may be a little trickier if they haven’t actually subscribed anywhere.  But there are a couple of clever WordPress Plugins that help personalise your blog.

What Seth Godin Would Do:  This plugin recogonises where your visitor has come from and whether they have visited before.  You can then set a specific welcome message at the top of a blog post to reflect this.  For example “Hey, thanks for checking this out from Twitter” or even “Welcome. As this is your first time, why not subscribe to our blog feed here”

Thank Me Later:  This clever little plugin gives me the option to send a personalised thank you email to readers who leave a comment for the first time on my blog.  All automatic so no extra work needed once it’s been set up.

Your direct mail

Again, same principles as with your email:  think about your headline, your salutation and the body of your letter.

Personalised postcards & thank you cards: For one off thank you cards, it’s cheap and simple to head on over to Funky Pigeon. Or if you want to order in bulk use someone like Personally Corporate.

The trick to successful personalised marketing

The trick to personalising your marketing without it becoming spammy and dripping with insincerity is in the way that you deliver it.

I’ve blogged many times before about automating your communication without becoming robotic, and the trick is really in the tone and the phrases you use.

Being personal with your clients is a great way of standing out “from all the rest”, especially if you do it with a sense of humour and a smile on your face.   But write the words around that name merge code like you mean it.  Write how you would say it if you could be right there in front of them, in person.

Give it a go and let me know what results you get!

I don’t often share much stuff about me on this blog.  Most of the articles here are focused on sharing marketing advice and tips for your business.  But it’s probably nice to show a little about me from time to time.

Heather Bestel, from Mum’s Got a Business, published this interview with me yesterday on her blog, so hope you enjoy

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I’m delighted to introduce you to a lady I met soon after I came online in 2007 and it was lovely to find a mum who had left the corporate world to spend quality time with her children. She certainly walks her talk. I also love her catch phrase ~ it’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way.

Name: Karen Skidmore

Brief description: Practical, no-nonsense marketing advice for small business owners specialising in web tech stuff such as blogs, email newsletters and social media. Making the complicated simple!

How many children do you have? Daughter aged 11 and son aged 9

Where do you live? On the Surrey/Hampshire borders in the UK

PC or Mac? Both! Plus my iPhone. Couldn’t be without it.

Tell us about your business:  I work with self-employed professionals and service based businesses who struggle to find enough clients. I show them how to “set and forget” their marketing and make easier for their clients to buy from them so they attract the right clients constantly and consistently throughout the year.

Some of my clients work on a 1-2-1 basis with me but many subscribe to my Web Tech Club which gives marketing advice for technophobic business owners. www.WebTechClub.com

What motivated you to start up your own business? To create a flexible career around my children. Once my daughter started school, I left my corporate 3 day a week job so that I could work during term times and be around at home during the school holidays. I think I look forward to the school holidays more than my two children, especially as I have been able to create a 12 month a year business whilst working just 9 months.

What’s been your biggest challenge in business? Listening to my target audience and creating products and programmes that they want – not what I think they need.

How have you overcome it? Not beating myself up when I make mistakes and learning from them so I can be better the next time round. Fortunately my 11 years in corporate sales gave me a pretty thick skin and as you get older, I think it’s easier to shrug off stuff that goes wrong.

And there’s nothing quite like having to go pick up the kids from school and work out year 6 maths homework to put it all in to perspective

What’s been your proudest business moment? There’s been quite a few really. I was pretty chuffed to find myself working closely with Surrey University in 2005 and 2006 where I was given funding to run my own business enterprise programmes specifically for women. More than 300 women came on my courses over those two years, and it really helped raise my profile in the local business community.

I also set up a women’s networking group at the same time and was running four events every month for about three years. Hard work but very rewarding.

And then I was pleased that I was able to shake off the “women-only” tag when I stopped running the networking events and focus my marketing on helping specific businesses and, in more recent years, with their web tech marketing. I suppose I have proved you can evolve and develop your business focus depending on what is wanted in the market place. Listen to your audience!

What’s your catchphrase or favourite quote? Completion not perfection

What do you do to relax or nurture yourself? Switching off the weekends is a must for me. I could work 7 days a week if I let myself so it’s great to log-off and take on my second business – the family taxi service!

I love to read. And yes, paper books. Despite my tech geek image, I do love good old fashioned books. Have become a regular at our local library.

What was the last treat you bought for yourself? My MacBook Pro. I am a huge Apple fan – love my iPhone – so I had been yearning for a mac to have all to myself. No children are allowed near it! It’s mine, all mine.

Favourite colour: Purple

Favourite flowers: Depends on the season, but I always love having white lilies in the house.

What one piece of advice would you like to give to a new business owners? Remember why you started up in business. When you get faced with making tough decisions or have a crap week, then remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing. I only ever wanted to run a part-time business and as different people have pushed me this way and that, tempting me with propositions I have been able to say “thanks but no thanks”. It’s why I like to work with local businesses and stay out of London as much as possible ;o) Can’t stand the commute – not after 11 years of corporate.

Fancy featuring as one of Heather’s amazing mums? Drop Heather an email over on her contact page and she’ll be in touch. And remember to drop by every Monday to welcome our latest profiled mum.  Check out Heather’s blog at www.mumsgotabusiness.com/blog

WARNING! Girly blog post coming up!  If you really can’t read about muffin tops and mum-tums, click away now!

Once again, I was faced with the old age dilemma.  I had a full wardrobe but no idea what to wear.

On Saturday night I was invited to a summer party and I had plans to wear one of my maxi dresses.  BUT … the weather turned cold and being stuck in a marque shivering was not one way I wanted to spend my evening.  So, to change the outfit.

Arrghhhhggghhh! Dilema!

I had to go to my local village with my kids to get some errands done – the usual birthday presents for friends, vegetable weekend top up and shoes to be re-heeled – so perhaps I could dash in one of the shops and find something.  Could I really find a pair of white linen trousers that would allow me to feel dressed up, but warm?

Now, East is a shop I rarely venture in to.  It reminds me of where I could be shopping in about 10 years time.  There are always lovely tunics (perfect for those bat-wings!) and structured dresses (extra support comes in handy as the years go by!) but I just felt at the age of 41, East was more of a 50+ target audience.

I still love to swan around Top Shop and Primark, but to be honest, it gets rather depressing having to go for size 16 tops just so you can pull them over your head without ripping the seams.

But as there are limited retail outlets on offer to me on this Saturday afternoon, I decide to take the plunge and dash in East in Haslemere with my 2 kids.  Plenty of white linen trousers! Thank Goodness!  But what would they look like on?

I automatically go for hunting for sizes 12 and 14.  It’s what I need to try on to make sure my mum-tum has plenty of room to be tucked in!  But when the shop assistant took one look at me and said “Oh, no.  You are not a 12 in here.  Most definitely a 10″, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Thank you”, I said.  ”That’s a lovely compliment, but I really do need a 12 or a 14 so I don’t display my muffin roll for all to see.”

She ignored me, went off to find a size 10 for me to try on – which I did, almost to prove her wrong.

Oh my, how wrong I was!  These size 10 white linen trousers where a perfect fit and I found myself strutting out across the shop floor exclaiming how wonderful it was to be wearing a size 10 again.

Did I buy them?  Absolutely!

Where they really a size 10, or just made with a bit of extra room and labelled as size 10 to make me feel good?  I really didn’t care.  I felt very good about myself!

So what’s this got to do with your business and your clients?  I am not expecting you to go out and lie or produce products and services that are misrepresented.  But to produce something that makes your clients feel really good about themselves … now that’s something special!

It’s the feeling that your clients get when they buy something from you that makes them come back for more and more.  Yes, your widgets do what they say they do.  Yes, you are able to help your clients get the results that they want.  But how do your clients actually FEEL about those widgets and results?

Make your clients feel good and you are on to a true winner.

And East may well have got another long term customer!

What do you do when you get cancelled?

Your first one or two years starting up your own business can be mentally tough.  You start from nothing and then find yourself with one or two clients.  Your confidence grows and you nervously push yourself that little bit more.  Perhaps get out to a networking event or call up a contact or two from your corporate days.

Then you may get a few more clients.  Yes, it feels good.

But then, your clients cancel.  ”I’m are too busy“, they say.  ”Apologies but I’ve got to go away on business.”  Or “I’ve got a few family problems to sort out.  I’ll call you again next month. Is that OK?“

You start to doubt yourself.  You start to feel desperate about finding another client. Are you really as good as you thought you were?  Are your clients cancelling because they think you are crap?!

The ebb and flow of clients is tough.  As new clients come to you, your confidence soars.  But as a client leaves you – even when you’ve done your job really well and there is no reason for them to pay for your services any more!!! – your confidence can flood away like a burst water mains.

This was happening to one of my clients this month.  Her initial joie de vie was starting to fizzle and she was questioning her ability and skills. I was reminded of a post-stick note I had stuck on my wall at about month 5.  I had exactly the same crisis of confidence. And as I read one of my favourite books “The Aladdin Factor” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, one the stories gave me this phrase:

Some Will, Some Won’t, So What …. Someone else is waiting!

That’s how life goes.  Some people you speak to will drop everything and demand a meeting with you right there and then. Others will have glazed over eyes and wonder what on earth you are talking about.  And others will commit to you … and then cancel, for no apparent reason.

So keep going! Don’t let the buggers get you down! If one person says no, so what! There WILL be someone else there who will say yes.  You just have to keep going to find them.

Because if you do constantly and consistently market yourself, you WILL attract new client constantly and consistently.

What do you do to get through the times when clients cancel? Would love your thoughts and ideas.

Imagine the queues if this was possible!

Not enough time in the day to get all your stuff done?

Pah!

It’s not time that’s your issue – it’s a lack a direction!

This may sound harsh but it’s true.  None of us feel that we have enough hours in the day.  It’s a complaint that slips easily off our tongues. And yet time is one resource that put us all on the same level playing field.  We all have 24 hours in the day, 7 days a week.

It’s how you choose to spend the hours that you have, that sets you apart from your competition.

Yes, yes, yes! Some of you are working mums.  Having a pre-schooler at home does give you limited work hours – may be even just two half days a week forcing you to burn the midnight candle every evening.

Some of you still have “day-jobs”.  You are waiting to hand your notice in or accept redundancy terms so if you want a meeting during work hours, it’s a juggle to get a days holiday or squeeze it in to the weekends.

I’m a mum myself.  My children are older now – 9 and 11 – so I work term times and take my foot of the peddle during the school holidays.  When I first started up in business in 2004, I was working 3 days a week in a full-on corporate sales environment, racing around with 2 young children doing the nursery runs and all the other mum-jobs that needed doing.  Fitting in a new business had to be squeezed in between the hours of 8pm and midnight.  When I handed my notice in and started up on my own, my eldest started school and my youngest was at home with me 2 days a week.  I had just 3 short school days to get anything done, plus the obligatory evening shift that kept me up most nights.

I wore that “Give me one more thing to do and I really well lose the plot!” T-shirt.

But what held me back from moving forward was not time.  It was a lack of direction.  It was a lack of a plan.  It was a lack of a clear way forward knowing what would help me bring in my first few clients.

I was focused on designing my own tri-fold leaflet.  I spent days on that to only chuck the remaining 500 in the recycling bin one year later.  They were really quite crap!

I faffed about with making my website look pretty.  (Moving images over by 10 pixels to the left.  And then again to the right. No, that image works better over there.  Oh, I’m back to where I started!)

I spent hours making lists of people to call.  And then ran out of time to call them. (Or was I just using the list making as an excuse not to pick up the phone?!)

But once I know what I was doing, time didn’t seem to matter.

I know I am at my most productive when I have the least amount of time available to dedicate to my business.  Now that both my children at at school full time and I have between the hours of 9am and and 4pm every day, it’s actually harder not to drift and become a slave to my inbox and never ending to-do-list.

I’m not perfect. I can faff about as much as the next person!  But when the next school holiday looms and my taxi services are due to start up again, nothing quite focuses the mind on doing the stuff that matters.  Doing the stuff that will move my business forward.

When you run your own business, you can just keep on and on.  There is ALWAYS more stuff that you could be doing.

But limit the one precious resource that you could always do more with, and it’s a great way to sharpen the mind and focus on what really makes a difference to your business.

So my challenge to you today is … if you only had 15 minutes to do something to move your business forward, right now – what would you do?

Time just keeps ticking. Tick tock, tick tock. It’s your choice what you do with the time that you have.

Make that time matter!

What do you think?  Is a lack of time that holds your business back?  Or is something else? Leave your comments below.

Photo credit HikingArtist.com

Pick a card ... any card!

The problem with face-to-face networking is that in can be a complete waste of time.  And a complete waste of a lot of your time.

A networking lunch may only be two hours, but what if you have spent the best part an hour getting there and then travelling back after the event.  Early morning breakfasts may feel like a good use of time, but getting up at 6am just so you can talk business over a croissant and a coffee before getting down to work at 9am, may leave you feeling knackered by 4pm.

It’s the dilemma many small business owners face.  Do you take out time of your busy week to shake hands with potential clients and referral partners?  Or spend time back in the office and risk the sudden end of your pipeline, with no leads of new contracts?

Now, I am a big fan of face-to-face networking.  I know I spend most of my time here on my blog writing about the virtues of LinkedIn, Twitter and other web tech marketing tools, but it’s just as important to spend time meeting people in RL (yup, that stands for Real Life!) as it is to engage with people virtually and build your online brand.

So how do you make sure your RL networking beings you more than a bucket full of business cards, gathering dust under your desk?

1. Be clear on your objectives:  Once you’ve got confident about walking in to a room ful of strangers, you need to take a step back and decide on what you want to get out of your networking events.  ”Getting more clients” may be your long term objective, but it’s just not specific enough for giving you focus on each event.Are you looking for referral partners?  Do you want to be introduced to contacts to help you with research for a new product?  Are you looking for a new distributor or graphic designer?
2. Be clear on who you want to meet:  Standing up and saying you want “more clients” is just not going to help the other people in the room.  They will end up just passing on names and numbers of anyone just so they can meet their referral targets that month.The more specific you are, the easier it will be for others to help you – Finance Directors from the healthcare industry, parents who struggling getting their kids through GSCEs and A Levels, online retailers who are looking for a new stock and invoicing systems.  You get the drift.  Explain exactly who you want to be introduced to.

   And yes, it can be a different person you are looking for at each meeting.  Mix it up each month and help your fellow networkers come up with new and relevant contacts for you.

3. Be clear on what you deliver: Too many of you go off to networking events and end up boring poor souls on the technical details of what you do.  It’s not what you actually do … it’s the results that you offer is what interests others.  So what if the 3 month programme you run for managers is broken down in to online modules – how much money can you make or save the business who puts their managers through this programme?  Results, not benefits!
4. Be clear on what you can do for others in the networking group: Networking is not one-sided.  It’s not about collecting business cards and adding them to your mailing list in the hope that one day, someone may buy from you.  Networking works because of the work you put in.  Helping others achieve what they’ve set out to do, and you will find that others will return the favour.  I’m not suggesting you focus all your efforts on other people’s goals but one good turn does deserve another.  Try it

Take the time to plan your networking strategy and be specific about the type of person you want to be speaking to, and RL networking can deliver results for you.

Plus it’s good to get away from our computers from time to time and meet people in RL!

Photo by dground

It’s great to get feedback and suggestions from subscribers to my Twitter Checklist.  And as this question seems to come up from time to time, I thought you may enjoy it as a blog post.

Twitter etiquette: How do you sell on Twitter, without doing the hard sell?

Including the words “Selling” and “Twitter” in the same sentence can send some social media enthusiastics in to an anaphylactic shock!

If you were to ask most marketers who use social media, they would fiercely deny that you can ever use Twitter to sell.  Social media is social in it’s very nature and if you were to start touting your wares like a double glazing salesman, then no one would want to be social with you.

Hard selling on Twitter is like the person you meet at a networking event who seems more intent on handing over his business card to everyone in the room, before driving off in his BMW and on to the next one.  Everyone avoids him and his business cards usually end up in the bin.

But if you can’t sell on Twitter, why use it as a business tool?

Is marketing selling?

First of all, let’s dispel the myth that all marketing is selling.  Selling happens when a potential client makes a decision and expresses an interest in what you do.  They may ask you about the price of an event, they may call you up asking about timeframes and delivery options.  They want to buy and you are there to sell to them.

But this process doesn’t happen at the beginning.

Very rarely does your potential client phone you up on that very first contact and ask whether you take Visa or just debit cards.

For most of you, they may cruise through your website.  They may search for you by name to check out any reviews online.  They may sign up for your Free Report and read your emails for a few months.

This whole process of building trust and rapport happens over time – sometimes a few weeks, sometimes a few years.

This communication is marketing.  And the selling only happens when they are ready to buy.

How do you market on Twitter?

So, the question really should be re-phrased and the word “selling” replaced with “marketing”.

And, to go one step one further, you could re-phrase it to ask “How do you communicate on Twitter?”

Communicating on Twitter just seems a whole lot easier, doesn’t it?

Ask me to sell on Twitter and I could give you tweets that involved lots of “Special discount on membership if you buy today” or “3 for the price of 2 if you click here right now”.

By all means, tweet these from time to time.  There’s no such thing as the Twitter police and you ain’t gonna get thrown in Twitter jail for tweeting this kind of stuff.

But, tweet like this all day and Twitter is going to be a very lonely place for you.

Ask me to market – or communicate – on Twitter and I can give you tweets that involve “Can’t believe they killed off Harry on Silent Witness” (that conversation lasted all day yesterday!!) or “KitKat or Hobnob? What should I have with my cup of tea?” (biscuit tweets are great fun and involve lots of banter).

But Harry and KitKats don’t sell my business!

I know!

But the relationships you build up with the people who follow you, do.

And that’s how you sell on Twitter.

I got this message from one of my connections on LinkedIn today:

“Long time, no speak. I hope all is well with you. I tried sending you a XXXX newsletter last week and it was blocked. May I ask if there is any reason why you blocked it? I would very much like to keep in touch. XXXX”

Ooooo! How to make a girl feel awkward?!

You see, I have a few gripes about this message. It’s great that this contact of mine is asking for feedback, but it’s rather blunt and makes me feel like I have done something wrong … when I haven’t!

1. I didn’t block it. I unsubcribed – and there is a difference in my opinion

2. I didn’t subscribe in the first place. I am really strict about this but email marketing should always – I SAID ALWAYS! – be on a permission basis.  To receive marketing info via email, the person must either subscribe themselves via a website or tick a box on a piece of paper.  Businesses can only ever offer an opt-in and never an opt-out.

If I haven’t subscribed, then I’ll unsubscribe.  If I feel the email deserves it, I will report it for spam.

3. I didn’t even know that the newsletter I unsubscribed from was from my contact. I had to think back and ask myself which newsletter was it that my contact sent.  It turned out that the newsletter was a very corporate one – it was aimed at large companies with large number of employees.  I’m just me!  I would never, ever need their services.  And yes, I know that I may know someone who may – but I am not willing to have my inbox blocked up with emails from companies who may be right for one of my contacts … one day.  That’s what networking and LinkedIn is all about.

4. Ask for feedback but don’t come across as defensive. People come and go.  It’s OK for your subscribers to unsubscribe.  I see some of my subscribers unsubscribe but then become active followers on Twitter.  Not everyone likes to get email so don’t ever get offended if someone decides to go.  Quick note – if you are getting a high number of subscribers, you may want to check on what you are sending out! You may be getting some useful feedback

What about you?

How do you feel when someone has asked why they have blocked them?

Or would you ask the same question yourself if someone unsubscribes from your list?