The Importance of Following Up

Whether you run a service based business or not, follow up with your potential and past clients is extremely important. Not only can it be a key to future business, but it’s something that many businesses fail to utilize to their advantage and therefore by doing so, you put yourself above many of your competitors.

I’m sure everyone has heard the term “lifetime customer” at some point in our business venture, but how many of us really grasp the concept of what a lifetime customer can do for us? Beyond the fact that they buy from you multiple times, a lifetime customer can also bring you the following:

• Great Testimonials
• New Ideas to Grow Your Business
• Future Customers

With the potential of those few things and more, we should all be striving to create lifetime customers in our business. Without a quality follow up how can we expect our customers to remember us, let alone help us grow and prosper in our business? Here are some ideas for following up with your customers in a way that gets results.

• Set up a newsletter or list.
• Offer them customer only deals on future products or services.
• Give them a discount for referring new customers.
• Ask for feedback on the products or services they purchased.

Following up with your customers does not mean shoving yourself or your business down their throat to the point they get tired of you. How you conduct your follow up is just as important as doing it.

Is Your Call To Action Working?

Your call to action or CTA is one of the critical elements of any sales piece.  Whether you’re writing an auto responder, a banner ad, or a long copy sales page it is critical to your conversion rate to include this final element. 

If it is left out, readers will not know what to do next, they actually need to be told how to proceed.  It doesn’t mean we’ll do it yet if there are no final directions like “Click here to buy now,” then we certainly won’t.   

Here are a few call to action possibilities to get your gears spinning: 

·         Visit our website at www.calltoaction.com·         Download your free report now·         Call today to reserve your time.  Appointments are limited.·         Click on the download button to start your free trial.·         Simply type your name and email address in the form, hit send, and check your email for your free ebook·         Order now 

Now these calls to action can work independently, however they tend to work better if there is a sense of urgency attached to them or some sort of extra incentive. 

Take a look at this example from Michel Fortin’s Success Doctor,  

Get your initial copy assessment and quote today. This free initial consultation is a $95.00 value. This estimate is guaranteed for 30 days only. Right now, our schedule is booked up for the next few months (some spaces are still left). So we encourage you to act quickly.Here’s another example from www.internetbasedfamily.com, Try our 10-day free website builder trial and see just how easy it is to build a feature-rich site that looks like it was designed by a professional designer. There’s never any purchase necessary, so give the site builder a whirl!-> Start Your 10-day free trial now. Pricing starts at just $17 / month.*Here’s to quickly creating a great website you can be proud of!A solid call to action combined with a sense of urgency and a reminder of a few selling points is a sure way to make sure readers not only know what to do next, they actually do it!  If you aren’t sure your call to action is working add a sense of urgency to it and test conversion rates.   

 

Attend a Live Event with Your Teens

People ask me all the time about how we homeschool. They want to know the “secret of success” that not only launched Drew into his career but that creates that bond between a parent and a teen.

Well, here it is in a nutshell:

Do cool stuff with them.

So many moms (with perfectionist mindsets) try to do everything FOR their kids. They give them all the best toys and clothes, sign them up for all the best classes, and expect them to do all their academic lessons perfectly.

I have found that kids often prefer to stay home more and work on lots of messy projects with just mom or dad.

At least that’s what my kids told me when we moved to the country and I finally started listening to them.

Here’s an example.

Drew has just finished building his house about 30 minutes down the road. He recruited three of his brothers, one sister and his dad to help. He also hired contractors for jobs he doesn’t like or know how to do.

Now he’s ready to start speaking at real estate conferences to teach how he sells houses on eBay. (He’s sold about 50 and is the only teacher I know who is doing what he does.)

So even though he hasn’t been to a conference in a long time, he asked me to go with him to one today.

When your 26-year-old asks you to go somewhere with him, that’s a good thing. So even though I’m already very busy, I’m going.

I consider one-on-one time away from home with a teen or young adult, the same as seeking the privacy of your bedroom to nurse your newborn. Both have special needs and both will grow out of the stage they’re in way too soon so I cherish that stage while they are there. And I try to meet their needs as quickly and as efficiently as I can.

The problem with attending a professional event is finding one that is family-friendly where teens are welcomed. That’s why my team and I have created the events we host.

The only real estate event we may ever host is coming up this April 11-13, 2008.

If you would like to go on what has been called “the ultimate field trip” with one or two of your teens and learn how to invest in real estate at the same time, consider joining us at our Real Estate Conference in Huntsville, Alabama.

This is real education. They don’t teach this stuff in school but you can write it in your journal.

Just call it Business: Real Estate Investing. It’s worth about ½ to 1 credit.

It could also make you and your teens financially free.

At least you’ll learn how to buy and sell a house and that alone could save you or even make you tens of thousands of dollars.

But here’s the main reason.

The experience you have with whoever you take on that trip will strengthen your relationship. Talk about what you like. Talk about what you don’t like. Talk about the future.

At least talk!

Years from now, you will both look back at that weekend where memories were set in stone and you’ll thank God that you invested the time and effort to work it in to your very busy life.

Besides all that, it could just change your life.

Make sure you say hey to Drew when you get there!

So many books, so little time…

Rhea!

who thinks all parents should take their teens into the business world instead of throwing them into it to learn from their peers

P.S. Learn more here: http://www.RealEstateDays.com

Go Courting This Valentine’s Day!

I have a special Valentine’s Video Message just for you!  It’s all about setting yourself apart in a loud and crowded marketplace.

Check it out here: http://members2.viditalk.com/view/?id=9S9HMWJIA7DWYDD5POGRH

Love & Success!
Sarah

Safely Share Email Address Online Yes You Can!

I’ve been around the Internet for a while. Not as long as some people but long enough, around 13 years - golly, that sounds terribly long doesn’t it? Back to the topic. In those days, when you wanted to contact people, you just click on a link and voila! Your email client (Outlook Express) would popup and you type away. I used to think that was so cool.

Then, like everything else spammers had to come in and spoil it for everyone. So now, even the most newest of newbies are taught never to put their email address or link to it online. Instead, use forms. But you know, creating forms is such a pain.

It’s one of my top 10 most dreaded things to do on a website. Not that it’s difficult it’s just tedious. Don’t you just wish you could go back to the old days and toss out that email address so people can contact you without using those forms?

Good news. You can with reCaptcha’s Mailhide. What it does is make people complete a captcha or solve two words presented in an image. If completed successfully, your email address will be revealed and people can click on it to send you an email just like the old times.

How cool is that? The best thing about it is, by using reCaptcha, you also help digitize books. To preserve our books and information, many organizations are digitizing them by scanning and using OCR (optical character recognization) to help convert the scanned text. But OCR is not perfect. In fact it can make a ton of mistakes especially if a scan is not of good quality.

This is where we humans come in. To enter the correct words. But goodness, do you know just how many books there are out there? So the guys at Carnegie Mellon University decided, why not spread the work load and make it useful? That’s when reCaptcha was born.

Each time someone solves the word puzzle on your site to get your email address, they are helping to digitize books and hey, you’re contributing too because you’re using it on your site. Pretty neat huh? I think so and I love books.

If you’re interested to use reCaptcha, I’ve created a video to help you with that. Press play to watch.

Moving a Mailing List

Because of the world of spam, legitimate emailers who have large lists of subscribers have an incredibly hard time getting their emails delivered these days.

We first noticed the problem last summer. I was sick in bed for several months and just didn’t stay on top of things to realize our emails weren’t getting through.

So in the fall last year, we decided to move our mailing list from AutoResponse Plus to Aweber. (You should too.)

We also had a list in 1 Shopping Cart but we try not to collect email addresses there because they bill based on the number of subscribers you have. The more you have, the higher your monthly bill. Not good.

Aweber has the strongest ability to deliver mass emails because they require double opt-in and do not offer a trial version that encourages spammers to “hit a list and run.”

So we started moving the list and learned we can only invite 2,000 subscribers per day to opt-in.

Oh brother.

So the moral to this story is, if you are planning to have an Internet-based business, start off with the right email management program in the beginning.

That way you don’t have to change horses in mid-stream.

Aweber has proven over time to be the one to use.

So many books, so little time…

Rhea!

who is amazed at how important little things concerning the Internet can be

How To Change Your Sales Copy From Rational To Emotional

We buy for emotional reasons, not rational ones.  Sure maybe you need a new car so the purpose behind your purchase is rational however the car you buy and the features it has are purely emotional.  Heated seats, sun roofs, 300 horsepower not one of those features will get you to the grocery store but they’re all features of a car that speak to your emotions.   

Here’s how to make sure your copy hits those emotional buttons. 

Write your sales letter first.  Don’t worry about whether you’ve chosen the correct word just yet.  Get the main structure of your letter on paper.  Once that is accomplished go back and clean it up.  Add your psychological motivators. Begin formatting it so the sentences you really want to stand out are highlighted and given room to shine.  Now you’re ready to transform your copy from rational or left brained to emotional or right brained. 

Left brained words are words that speak to the logical side or rational and structured side of our thoughts.  Words like ·         Inform·         Wealthy·         Tardy·         Reply·         Learn 

Words that are right brained or emotional words speak to our emotions, intuition, and imagination.  For example·         Tell·         Rich·         Late·         Answer·         Find out 

Examine the sentences in your copy and consider whether they are logical left brained words or right brained words.  There are lists available online however many times the replacement words are pretty obvious.  Here’s William Zinsser’s advice in his classic book, On Writing Well: “Beware, then, of the long word that is no better than the short word: ‘numerous’ (many), ‘facilitate’ (ease), ‘individual’ (man or woman), ‘remainder’ (rest), ‘initial’ (first), ‘implement’ (do), ‘sufficient’ (enough), ‘attempt’ (try), ‘referred to as’ (called), and hundreds more.”

Last but not least, a quick and easy way to see how many left brained words are on your website home page is to take advantage of a CGI script written by Paul Galloway.  Visit this link http://www.paulgalloway.com/cgi-bin/emotional_words.cgi and type in your website URL. You’ll see all left brained words in bold red with the right brain replacements. 

Use this great tool to examine some of your favorite sales pages to get a good idea of how right brained words are used to enhance copy. 

Running A Bussiness When Life Is Falling Apart

The most important thing that we all must keep in mind is being faithful and consistent in our businesses, even in the midst of trials and confusion. We all have the daily challenges of running a business and working towards a goal that will produce the right results. The question is how do we do that when life all around us as we know it, is falling apart.

The thing I take to heart is that all of us who take on the challenges of running a business will all run into challenges not only in our businesses but also in our personal lives. It is normal and part of life on this planet as we know it.

There are days when the struggles in our lives cave in on us and we just want to give up. The good news is that as an entrepreneur, we all have something inside of us that just keeps us going. It is the drive to do better in life and continue on with that hope of free enterprise. In order to have the courage to step out there and take on the challenge to create, own and operate a business, that in itself proves that we all have the right stuff to make it through any difficulties that come upon us.

Owning your own business is the most fantastic gift we can give ourselves. It is through our struggles of building our businesses and the personal struggles that we go through in life , that produces the most courage,character and stamina which in return brings us the best results of becoming a sucessful entrepreneur, and an amazing human being. So my encouragement is for all of you to be the best you can be no matter what life throws your way. This will be the strong foundation that will not only build your business but also build your life.

I apologize for not blogging in the last several months, due to difficult situations in my life. I had to put all projects on hold. I am back now and have grown a lot and I am more focused and determined to run the best business ever, and to ensure that my housecleaning business will be a business with a purpose and a focus. It is amazing to think that a toilet cleaning business that has a great reputation in the Seattle area, has also been a business that launches low income single moms in their own housecleaning businesss and gives them the ability to have a piece of the rock, “The Great American Dream.” That is what running a business with a purpose when life around you is falling apart, is all about.

What I am trying to say, is that no matter what trials or tribulations you go through in your business or home life or any other situation that causes you grief; all we need to do is look around and look to others and see how we can serve those who have it worse than we do. It is a tremendous way of healing yourself, and also it is a very excellent way a building a strong base, and a great mission statement for your own business.

It is not enough to just build a business, however if you build a business with a purpose to help others, you would be surprised how much joy you will derive in your life, and how much happiness and enlightment you will bring to your soul.

Elaine Gordon Evans
owner of American Maid Service
www.elainegordonevans.com
www.elainesamericanmaid.com

Surveys - Do They Work?

One of the easiest ways to get feedback from your customers is to conduct surveys, but how do you know if they really work? Here are a few tips to get the most out of your surveys.

1. Have a market. Without a following of some sort (and no it doesn’t have to be a huge following to be effective) you’ll never get answers to the questions you ask.

2. Ask specific questions. When compiling questions for your readers, make them specific questions.

3. Give them choices. Many times, people respond better to questions where they are given answers to choose from. If you leave them to answer with their own words, you won’t always get the response you’d hoped for, if any response at all. Thinking about an answer requires more time and energy from your survey takers.

4. Give them the option to expand on their answers. Although many Internet users want things handed to them, there are just as many out there who want to voice their own opinions on a subject. Give them the opportunity to do so in your survey.

5. Keep it short and sweet. Time is precious. The shorter amount of time it takes to get the answers you are looking for will result in a far more productive and useful survey.

So, to answer the question, “Do surveys work?”, absolutely! When put together with a bit of thought and planning they are a great resource for your business. You can try Easy Internet Survey to get your surveys going.

BUT a word of warning – Never let a survey replace actual tracking data and observation. The curious thing is that, in many cases, people actually behave in different ways than they say they will. In other words, what they want or what they’d do in a survey is quite different from how they will actually react in a given situation. So always combine your survey data with observations of your market. You can use the tips I made in this post to make your observations.

Tips For Creating More Focus

Hi There -  All you all geared up to get more focused?

Last week I spoke about the importance of creating and keeping your focus.  This week I wanted to help you by giving you a few tips:

•  Each day create your list of things that must be done before days end.  Stay focused on each task individually and check the tasks off as you complete them. 

•  Create a plan of action - To achieve and stay focused on your goal you should clearly plan it out.  Don’t just think it, write it down. Ask yourself, “What will I need to do to get from where I am today to where I want to be?” Your strategies to get to where you want to be may change as time goes on,  but keep your eye on the goal.

•  Surround yourself with a good support system.  Try using the buddy system and surround yourself with people who will encourage and challenge you. Being accountable to someone other than you is a great motivator to get a job done.

•  Concentrate on not jumping from task to task and allow yourself to take refreshing breaks between tasks to rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit.

•  Stay Focused When you work at home:   it can be very easy to lose focus on your work and find yourself doing chores around the house that need to get done or pretending to “work” when you are actually reading blogs or forums.  The time you spend procrastinating can be spent completing the work you are putting off.  When you stay focused and get your work done, you’ll be less stressed and you’ll find you are much more balanced.
 

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