Featured Post
By David On November 6, 2009No Comments
In a previous post, I explained the virtues of the lowly business card. Every business needs an ample supply of cards to give to customers, potential customers, friends, acquaintances and anyone else you run into. You simply cannot hand out too many business cards.
You also need a virtual business card, too. “What!?!”, you say. Yes, you also need a business card for the virtual world. I’m not talking about your website, this is in addition to it.
People are spending more time online than ever before and its not likely to change. Search habits are getting more refined. With social networks on the rise, your name is likely to be Googled more than you think.
Here’s a screen shot of my virtual business card, click it to go to the url (a new page will open).
Notice how clean, simple and direct the message is: who I am, what I do and how to contact me. This single page website appears in the top 10 rankings of Google when my name is searched for.
The title bar says it all: “David Tinney’s virtual business card”. This page gets a lot of the traffic that’s looking for David Tinney.
Domains are relatively inexpensive now. You should own your name and take advantage of a virtual business card.
Recent Posts
By David On December 21, 2009
No Comments
It’s the little things you do consistently in a great way that make a great difference. Try this once a day and see if it doesn’t make a difference in 4 weeks.
Give your clients a call from time to time, just to see how they are. Please, don’t even think of trying to sell them something. Simply engage them as a fellow human being in a simple conversation.
Yesterday, I was driving through a neighborhood and I stopped at a house our company had performed a job at. Anne, the owner, met me on the driveway and gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek. She was so pleased to see me and impressed I would take the time to stop by. It took 4.5 minutes. A phone call should take half the time and produce similar results.
By David On November 3, 2009
No Comments
I see a terminal disease in some salespeople. Those who are only in it to collect the check. They only see the client as a means to ‘collect’. I would like to shake the marbles out of their brains and scream, “You’re missing the whole point!”
Here’s what I mean. ‘Connect’ with the client. Find something in common, a thread of commonality that will bind you together in friendship. After all, people like to do business with friends.
Yes, it takes a little bit more work to actually converse with a client as opposed to the recitation of your canned sales speech. Thought has to go into the asking of engaging questions that encourage your client to open up and reveal a part of themselves. And, it requires one to actually listen to the response received from the client.
Once you travel this path, you’ll find you look at clients in a different light. They become real, more than just a means to collect a check. I found this way more enjoyable than a stale sales process.
The reward is worth way more than the effort. A connection is made, a friend is found. How valuable is that? Connecting is far better than just collecting.
By David On September 16, 2009
1 Comment
Mel Gibson starred in a movie back in 2000 called, “What Women Want”. As a result of an accident, Mel’s character could read women’s thoughts. Even though it was a funny movie, it revealed that men had no clue want women are thinking.
Same is true today in the business world. This morning I was browsing a contractors website. They’re business was building barns for equine lovers.
Tucked in this contractor’s website was a page named, “Testimonies”. I began reading what his customers had to say about him and his business.
About half way through the page, I came to a lady’s lengthy testimony about her entire experience with this small company. She outlined specifically why she chose this particular contractor to build her horse barn.
Please pay careful attention, because here we have the rare opportunity to to look into the mind of a customer.
This is her first reason:
Moderate Cost - I wasn’t looking for the lowest price builder, however, I had a budget to stick to and needed someone who would fit in that range. Of the six I looked at, you were situated in the middle of the price range and within my budget.
Notice first she wasn’t looking for the cheapest price. I’ve found in my experience, most customers aren’t. You don’t have to be the cheapest on the block, you only need to be competitive. Secondly, she had a budget in mind. Most customers have a budget and I’ve found more times than not, if you ask what they’re budget is, they’ll tell you. Thirdly, our favored contractor was in the middle of the six that gave her quotes. Like I said, all you have to be is competitive.
Second reason she purchased from this specific contractor:
Quality of Construction - Based on the photos and references I reviewed, it appeared that you were a top quality builder. I discussed your reputation with some of your competitors, and was pleased to see that even they spoke highly of your quality.
Here we find our customer was looking for quality. She looked at the pictures posted on our contractors website of projects he had previously completed. Do you post pictures of your completed projects on your business website? Might be a good idea if you did. Uh oh, she even asked his competitors what kind of a businessman he is. Believe me, your reputation is important and your competitors know your reputation! In one of my businesses, we routinely have new customers come to us and tell us how rude our competitor around the corner is. Lesson is, always do your very best because customers want to know and will ask.
The third reason our contractor won the day:
Speed of Construction - I needed a builder who could build me barn in a relatively short time frame, since my home in Cincinnati, Ohio was sold, and my family and horses were relocating on January 15. I was not going to receive my permit for the barn until December 27. I was requesting you to build a 128′ x 48′ barn in about a three week time frame, right in the middle of the holiday season.
Our customer had a very specific need, a barn built in a short amount of time which was in a typically bad time to get a project completed on short notice. Many times our customers have specific needs that if we can meet them, we win the day. Sometimes they tell us, oftentimes we find out these specific needs only if we ask.
The final quote from our customers letter:
I am pleased to say you exceeded my expectations in all three areas. I was so happy that all the costs were billed to me exactly as estimated. There were no surprises in the final invoices.
Our contractor deserves a medal, he exceeded her expectations! When you’re talking to your customers, are you making mental notes of what they expect? You should because if you fail to meet their expectations, you fail.
My final comment from our customer’s letter: All costs were billed exactly as estimated. Now this is huge because its common practice among many contractors to add some at the end of the project, just for good measure. No, no one likes the unexpected surprise of additional costs. If a project has unexpected expenses arise, tell your customer then, don’t wait to give them the “big surprise” at the end.
There you go, you’ve just had the rare opportunity to look into the mind of a very satisfied customer. This contractor did such a great job, I’m publishing his name and website, White Horse Construction in Chester County Pennsylvania.
By David On July 29, 2009
No Comments
I often marvel at today’s technology. This morning is no different.
I’m sitting at my breakfast bar, drinking my usual coffee, Folgers with a heavy dose of French vanilla cream. Next to me sits my long time friend and business partner, Nickolay from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Nickolay owns KievApartment.com, a travel office I helped him start about 10 years ago in Kyiv.
He’s enjoying my Folgers, but just black. We’re both online with our laptops. I’ve been checking email and looking at some sales figures from yesterday’s online activity. Nickolay’s had several conversations via Skype with clients and business associates in Ukraine.
There’s an 8 hour time difference between Northeast Oklahoma and Ukraine, so it’s late afternoon there. But because of the technology of today and a fast internet connection, there is no distance, really.
Because of this, the world is much smaller and your business network is potentially much larger than ever before.
I just think that is really cool.
By David On July 13, 2009
No Comments
When times get tough, your marketing dollars need to be spent more wisely because you’re competing for fewer customers who are tighter with their wallets. Rather than cutting marketing from your budget, a mistake many business owners make, cut the fat from your marketing budget So its leaner but more effective.
A Yellow Page ad can be a very effective marketing tool for your business. Certain kinds of businesses benefit more than others from this type of marketing. If your business is only occasionally used by the public, such as a plumber, electrician, travel agent, attorney, bail bondsman, printer, auto mechanic, contractor, dentist, etc., your yellow page ad will be more effective than a business that is frequented very often by the public. I mean how often do you call your local grocery store for something? Not very often. But when the toilet is backed up and running over, you need a plumber and you need one RIGHT NOW! And where do you go? That’s right, the yellow pages.
Not long ago, I returned home from the office and I noticed a large yellow book lying in the driveway of my neighbor. I stopped, got out of my car for a closer look. I could’nt believe my eyes! The book was a Yellow Page directory that was being distributed in our residential area.
A few thousand businesses in the area had spent hard earned profits on Yellow Page advertisements for what? To be tossed on the driveway of potential users in February. How many books do you suppose were destroyed by inclement weather before the homeowner could retrieve it from their driveway?
How much value do you think the homeowners placed on those directories if the publisher placed no more value than to have them tossed on the driveway? Probably not very much.
You know what that means? If your ad was in that Yellow Page directory, your hard earned dollars was lying on a cold, wet driveway in February. Now how effective were those marketing dollars spent? That’s right, not very well.
When choosing which Yellow Page directories to market your business in, there are five in my area, you should also consider not just the cost but also how the publisher delivers the finished directory. Do they use the postal system to deliver them to residential areas or are they tossed in the driveways and yards?
Whether times are hard or not, your marketing dollars must be spent in the most effective manner. Don’t waste your money with a marketing company that places very little value on what you spend with them.
