Are you ready to wrap it up for 2005 and gear up for the best year you’ve ever had in your business? First of all, check your belief level. Do you believe your time has come for a fantastic, record-busting year? That’s step one.
Are you ready to stop wasting time chasing after strangers, trying to get their attention and educate them on your products, your company, your commitment to exceptional service? The great news is the very best customers you will ever experience in your business for 2006 are people who know your name today. They are your customers now. They will reward you with more business, great referrals and fresh ideas for breakthrough services, if you will do just one thing better in 2006—work on your relationship with them.
Yes. It’s the big “C” words –commitment, communication, current customers. Do this right and you get the only two “C” words that count in business: Customers and Cash flow.
You can—and should, do this in a systematic way. We are not talking about more customers or more marketing activities—not at all. Think deeper. Think about concentrating your time and communications on 50 or fewer people and their businesses.
There is some excellent help to keep you focused and effective. We’ll point to a few intensely practical resources, then I’ll offer up one Challenge Strategy for 2006—the one thing you can do to prove to yourself this will take you beyond your own ambitious dreams for 2006.
Excellent help #1. Do this systematically. Enroll now in the Ultimate Small Business Marketing System created by Duct Tape Marketing. I’m 100% sure this makes a big difference because I take my own customers through the course—like a mentor. The ones I choose to shepherd through the course are extra sharp business owners whom everyone thinks are super marketing folks already. But they know they are dogging it. They know they have not done half the business they could. Just by concentrating on the current customer strategies in the course, before they have even finished the course, breakthroughs start happening for them.
You can jump into the system at the beginning of any of the four modules and do great. That’s why it’s called a system. The next course—Harness the Internet, begins a series of three weekly lessons and practice swings with the instructor and class on January 11th. How perfect is that for getting off the blocks fast and explosively for 2006?
Excellent help #2. Get your electronic newsletter talking directly to the needs, interests and stories of those most-favored, most preferred customers now. Let thousands of others read it and see how well you treat your best customers. The big message comes through, “You will enjoy the achievements and success that my customers do when you become my customer.” Your best source of great help is Blue Penguin Development which helps professional service firms get clients, by showing them how to communicate effectively with the people they already know. Go to the website and subscribe to the free newsletter. While there, sign up for the free booklet, “Five Deadly Fears of E-Newsletter Publishing( and How To Overcome Them).” These include 1. Fear of Having Nothing to Say 2. Fear of Technology 3. Fear of Publishing on a Regular Basis 4. Fear of Writing, and 5. Fear That SPAM Makes it All a Waste of Time.
Here's that Challenge Strategy for 2006, we promised. While addressing Christmas cards or holiday greeting letters this week, identify the 50 customers who mean the most to you, whether or not they were “the best” in the past. Put complete information on each of the 50 in that speed dial feature in your cell phone—name, email address, as much stuff as you have fields in the phone's database. Think through a strategy of relationship building for the whole year and write it on a 3 x 5 card (keep it simple). Focus on Fifty. Make it your mantra. Do what it takes to get in touch, stay in touch, listen deeply and remember what those 50 say, want, express, do, buy and refer to you—all year long.
It’s one big idea. Be totally there for them and systematically in touch, wherever your business takes you. Focus on 50 people and how you can wrap your service, products and uniqueness around all that ask from you. Then come back here and comment. Tell us you are doing this. Share with everyone else your story of how one, powerful idea made it your best year, ever.
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