As a Credit Manager, what would you do if a customer bounced a check on you? Then when you call them to make that check good, you get voice-mail. You leave a stern, straightforward message about the check but two weeks later, the check is still not good. Now what? You send an e-mail; you leave another message or two but still no payment. This is just one of many scenarios that can occur even to the best Credit Managers that warrant making that decision to place the account with a commercial collection agency.

Here is a checklist of just some of the warning signs that require prompt action to place your past due customer with a Commercial Collection Agency:

1. NSF Checks – A customer bouncing a check to a vendor is never a good sign. It could mean several different things such as the customer is living on the edge, robbing Peter to pay Paul. In many cases, a customer of theirs didn’t come through with money they owed so it affects your customer and how they pay you. Look at an NSF check this way – you already collected this account once. Don’t spin your wheels doing it again, get an agency on this account sooner rather than later.

2. Talking Bankruptcy – Give your past due customer a test. Ask them the following pointed question: Would you consider filing bankruptcy? Listen closely to their answer. It is extremely telling if they say something like: “I don’t even have enough money for an attorney to file bankruptcy”. If they tell you they are simply waiting for one or some of their clients to pay, ask them for the names of those – if they gladly give up that information, you should feel some assurance. If they hem and haw or flat out refuse to give you any info, red flag.

3. Skips Scheduled Payments – You diligently work your past dues right as they become past due and you get a customer on a payment plan. Good for you, great job. It’s that time of the month for that customer to make payment #3, and they can’t or won’t make that payment. Regardless of the reason, cash flow, forgot, something unexpected came up, it doesn’t matter. Be proactive; place this account with a commercial collection agency.

4. Credit Card payments are denied or reversed – This is a plastic NSF. See # 1 above.

5. Threatens never to buy from you again if you persist or escalate collection efforts – It’s one thing to fall behind to your vendors, it is quite another to threaten the loss of your “business” if that vendor actually wants to be paid for their product or services. Don’t hesitate on this one. Place them immediately with commercial collection agency.

6. Continuing to buy from your competitors – This one stings twice. Not only are they NOT paying you but now they are using the money they should pay you with to buy from your competition. The warning here is if they didn’t generate the revenue with the product/service they ordered from your company, what makes you think they are going to raise their cash flow with your competitors products/services. Even if they do generate some money, which vendor do you think they’ll pay?

7. Communication doesn’t exist – You have been sending your reminders, your escalating demand letters and making your phone calls, possibly even sending e-mails and your customer is not responding. Unless they are in a coma (and you are going to want to see a Doctor’s note) this is a telltale sign. No company has only one vendor. If they have ceased all communications with you, chances are they are being inundated with other collection calls; letters or e-mails and they are ignoring everyone.

There are more signs that are self explanatory:

• Over 90 days past credit terms
• Says they are selling the company and will pay upon finalizing sale
• Refuses to sign a personal guarantee when not paying within agreed upon terms
• Claims will have to go out of business if actions are taken against them
• Claims product was defective or other dispute after collection process begins
• Breaks promise or simply lies to you

Proactive Credit Managers know their customers well. They understand when something out of the norm occurs it may be a warning that something bigger is amiss. These are the Credit Managers that seem to find themselves ahead of the curve and protect their interests well. Placing past due accounts with a commercial collection agency is an important step. It is preferable to work out a reasonable solution with your customers but as we all know there are instances when this cannot be done. Knowing the signs to look for will give you a step up and in the long run make you look good to your Executive team.

If you have customers who have become past due and are showing any of these warning signs, now is the time to get a small business collection agency involved to help you get these accounts paid!

This article describes the top five reasons that any business, nonprofit organization or government agency should use bus advertising to promote its product, service or message. Read on to learn about the advantages of bus advertising for yourself.

Reason No. 1: Bus Advertising Cuts Through the Clutter.

With so many forms of outdoor advertising on the street, ads on buses stand out because they are on moving vehicles and are on the viewer’s eye-level. With large and bold colors, ads on buses capture viewers’ attention like no other ad form. For this reason, ads on buses have survived through the decades – almost as long as buses have been around.

Reason No. 2: Bus Ads Can Cover An Entire Market.

Bus media can result in coverage across the entire market with great frequency, while providing coverage in highly-targeted areas of the market. Because buses travel all over the city every day, the bus ads reach almost the entire market. And because bus companies have to use almost every bus in their fleet on a daily basis, advertisers are sure to see their ads on the street. Thus, the reach of bus advertising can be tremendous at low bus advertising costs.

Reason No. 3: Universal Bus Sizes Mean Multiple Market Placement.

With A Single Size. Because a bus ad is generally universal in size (e.g., 144” wide by 30” high for bus side – also know as a bus king; and 28” wide by 11” high for a bus interior – also known as an interior car card), advertisers can design a single size and place it in multiple markets. No having to mess with a specific size for each city. Graphic artists are grateful for this fact and often push their media planners to choose the bus ad medium for this reason.

In fact, in early 2010, in an effort to increase awareness about the 2010 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau covered over 175 cities with interior bus ads with just one size: 28” wide by 11” high.

Reason No. 4: Viewers Can’t Turn Off Bus Advertisements.

Unlike advertisements on radio or television or even the internet, ads on buses can’t be muted, turned off or closed. For this reason, bus advertisements have grown in popularity as other media has become more “controllable.” Drivers and pedestrians can’t avoid looking at a bus advertisement as it passes them by. As other ad forms continue to lose popularity, more advertising dollars will flow to bus advertisements and the bus ad medium in general.

Reason No. 5: Bus Wraps Produce Large Impressions Figures.

An added advantage of bus advertising is the bus wrap. Literally wrapped around the entire bus (except the front), a bus wrap grabs viewers’ attentions and produces large gross impressions at low bus wrap costs. And with production methods improving, the cost of producing a wrap for a bus will continue to decrease, thereby affording more advertisers the opportunity to experience a bus wrap for themselves.

Yes, the key to doing more is doing it with less. With all of the changes that have been implemented among Facebook Brand Pages within the last year, from the end of Facebook Discussions and Reviews in October to the roll-out of Timeline for Brands this spring, it’s hard to keep track of what’s actually working for brands on Facebook. The most recent numbers actually indicate fan growth slowed with the Brand Timeline switch. But thinking smart transcends those changes — and never goes out of style.

“You want to engage your audience and make sure that they feel like they’re apart of something — not just being marketed to,” Shankman explains. “Then they will do your PR for you.”

Shankman’s experience with brands runs deep. The former journalist and founder of Help A Reporter Out has written two books on marketing and customer service in the social media world — Customer Service: New Rules for a Social Media World and Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work — and Why Your Company Needs Them. He’s also frequently globetrotting to consult and speak on PR and social media, and has worked with major companies, such as American Express and Disney. through his company, The Geek Factory.

Want to Lose Followers? Be Repetitive

It’s really true that in life, one size does not fit all. The same can be said about your social media networks, too. Shankman says that nothing bothers him more than seeing brands post repetitive content on every social platform available — including their Facebook Brand Timeline.

“If you’re pushing the same crap onto your Facebook, you deserve to get your ass kicked,” he says.

Instead, Shankman advises to place special content onto your Timeline that can engage users in a unique way — not just spamming the same information over every platform available. That way, when fans know what kind of content to expect from your page, they will know to return to your brand site for specific engagement instead of clicking the back button.

“Let it be something your audience wants to see, that they’re excited about,” Shankman explains. “When you have those kinds of things, that’s when you want to share.”

Nothing Smart to Say? Don’t Say It at All

Shankman says that the best way to produce smart content is to engage in a conversation with your fans. Asking questions about the quality of the brand or polling users about what they want to see from a service are always more engaging than just pumping out promotional material.

“You have to engage and you have to respond,” Shankman says. “It can’t just be about posting ‘Hey! 10% off for the next five minutes!’”

But even a careful and thoughtful dialogue on a Brand Page won’t yield rainbows and sunshine all the time. Shankman admits that every brand will have its haters or vocal fans who have had a bad experience with a service or product. But, don’t just ignore and delete the complaints of your naysayers just because your Timeline is a finite medium. He says that mistakes are often best received by fans when they’re approached head-on — and with transparency.

“Work with them,” he advises. “Be honest and say, ‘Hey! We didn’t do this right and we’re trying to make it better.’”

Keep it Simple, Stupid

So what content actually works for brands? Shankman advises that content should be tailored to your audience, not just the things that you find interesting about your own brand. He adds that it’s also unwise to attempt to treat your Brand Page simply as a satellite to your company’s blog or website.

“Facebook is an entirely different animal,” he says. “You can’t just repopulate your entire website onto it.”

So if promotional material can fail and the copy you already have can fail, what do you have left? Shankman says that no two brands are alike, so there’s no panacea for every Brand Page on Facebook. In fact, the easiest way to find out what does work on your company’s Brand Page is to ask the fans that frequent it.

“The best way to give information to your audience is to find out how your audience wants it,” Shankman says. “You’ll never go wrong with that.”

Conclusion

Shankman says that, in short: It’s not about you, it’s about your audience. Shankman says the biggest mistake that brands make is self-absorption — if you make your content for yourself and not for your fans, you’re going to motivate them to click the back button and maybe remove you from their feed entirely. Instead, treating Facebook like the unique medium it is can help your brand’s social media reputation in the long run — and perhaps motivate your fans to evangelize your product and influence their own circles. As Shankman says, “Give them reasons to want to be there and to want to talk to other people.”

1. Focus

Concentrate on the issues that genuinely matter to you and your company. One of the things that truly make a difference in business is your customers, your products, your suppliers and especially your staff. Do you have enough customers? Do you have products and services that they want? Do you have the best products and services, ones that consumers want and they are willing to pay for? Do your staff serve customers in a way that keeps them pleased, provide a good service, and in general act in a way that are good for your organization?

2. Take action

It is all good and well to focus on just what is important, but you need to take action. Make a step-by-step plan in which you schedule the actions that needs to be taken to achieve your goals. Regular and consistent action is more crucial compared to massive surges of energy every so often. Consider the tortoise and the hare.

3. Persistence (as well as work)

Finally, action done once is ok, nevertheless persistence and diligence is what will pay off in the long run. Do not allow anyone to deceive you – smart work is well and good, but we have to work hard and be persistent to achieve results.

4. Attitude

Attitude is the sum of your feelings, beliefs and how you intend behaving. Simply put what do you feel and believe about yourself and your abilities? Can you focus, do you have the ability to work hard and do you persist until you reach your goals? All of this will result in you intending to behave in a certain way – in other words take action. If you do not feel or believe that your focus, action and persistence will result in the type of outcome you value, then you won’t even try.

5. Some suggestions

Consider building your self-belief and self-esteem. Do not let anyone put you down, especially when it interferes with your attitude. You could use affirmations, list some successes you achieved in your life, possibly a positive difference you made to someone else.

Lastly you could consider getting your colleagues or staff to adopt the same approach as you. Coach then to focus on what is important, to act on it, to persist and support this with the right attitude. Also remember, you could make use of business coaching to help you and keep you accountable to do what it takes to achieve success. Success is not an accident, it is the result or good planning and also getting help. It not the result of some accident or luck, it is the result of doing what it takes and having the right attitude.

As a company and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. We are committed to our clients and colleagues and have a passion for technology.

This is an opportunity to work with a growing company, in a friendly environment and with unlimited earning potential!

Responsibilities / requirements of sales representative:

- Business to business sales
-  Ability to Work Independently
- Good communication, lead generation, selling and closing skills
- Make accurate representation about our services
- Comfortable Dealing with Customers on the Phone and/or Face to Face
- Represent yourself in a professional attire and manner
- Internet access and reliable phone (cell phone strongly recommended)
- Previous sales experience preferred
- Familiar with online marketing, blogging, and social media
- PayPal Account to Receive Commission Payments (Free Setup)

Compensation: How Much Do You Get Paid?

Ok … Now on to the good stuff. You want to know how much you will get paid. We have a two part commission structure which offers payments now as well as a residual income that will continue to pay you month after month as long you stay active with the company. Here is the compensation plan:

- 40% commissions on all sales that you generate
- 15% on monthly residual payments from client

So How Much Can You Actually Make?

What’s great about the compensation plan is that not only can you earn money today, but you are building a long term business of sorts with the ongoing monthly residuals. Our basic packages sell for $500 USD + $200 USD monthly charge. What this means for you is that for every sale, you earn nearly $200 USD and $30 USD (residual) each month per client. Let’s have a look at a hypothetical example of what you may earn.

For this example we are going to assume that you are only working part time and only able to generate 20 new clients per month (1 per day – 20 working days). Obviously this is not a guarantee of income as what you put in is what you get out. You will earn more or less depending on your efforts.

20 New Clients X $200 USD (40% Commissions) = $4000 USD
20 New Clients X $30 USD (15% Commissions) = $600 USD

*** Please note that commissions have been rounded to whole dollars for easier calculations

Again, the above example is just an illustration, but we’re hoping that you can see that this is much more than just a sales job. By using the above example, after just one year you would have built up 240 new clients of which you would be receiving $30 USD on each of them per month.

That’s $7,200 USD or $86,400 annually USD just on existing clients and doesn’t take into account new clients that you generate going forward as well additional services sold to existing clients, performance bonuses and sales contest that may be run throughout the year.

What We Expect From You:

As mentioned above, we are looking for people who are Energetic, Motivated, Ambitious, outgoing, who have a drive to succeed and want to earn a substantial income in the process. We are not looking for individuals that are satisfied with a cap on the amount of money they can earn.

What You Can Expect From Us

On the flip side, for any business relationship to work, you need to know that you have a company that is behind you 100%. That being said, here is what you can expect from us:

- A Young and Aggressive Company on the Cutting Edge
- Regular Commissions Paid to You Every Week
- Residual Commission Paid to You Every Month
- Company paperwork and business cards provided
- Initial training and on-going support provided
- No up-front costs and no sales quotas
- Growth and upward mobility
- Flexible hours (work on your own schedule)
- Full Training and Support

Where Do We Go From Here?

Ok, so now you have gone through this quick overview. You should know a bit more about the position, understand the potential income that can be generated and hopefully meet the requirements. If so, then we would love to hear from you. To apply and to see if there are still openings in your available location, please do the following:

1. Send an email to jobs@redtidemarketing.com
2. Include a copy of your latest resume with relevant work experience
3. Briefly explain why you think you would be a good fit for this position
4. What income levels you are looking to achieve
5. How many hours per week do you plan to work
6. When are you available to start?

That’s pretty much it. If there are still openings in your specific area, then you will be contacted to have a brief interview and to cover more details of the position and the steps to get started. Feel free to call us with any questions 801-738-7483.

Before you make the investment in radio advertising one of the first things you need to consider is who you are advertising to. This is your target customer. If you do not know who your target customer is, take a step back and re-examine your business strategy. This should be something that you can spit out within.02 seconds of someone asking you who your target customer is. Maybe your target customer is multiple people. If this is the case ask yourself what is it that you want to advertise and who is the target customer for that specific product or service.once you’ve established this the next three steps should be fairly easy to get through.

Step one: Identify what it is that would drive customers to want the product or service you are offering. When people come to you and actually purchase your product or service what are they telling you? How are they describing the need you fulfilled by offering a product or service? This will be key once to get to the step of creating the actual commercial. The commercial itself will need to address this need.

Step two: Hire someone who knows what they’re doing when it comes to writing a commercial. No matter how creative you think you are or how well your writing skills were in high school, chances are you’re not qualified to write an effective radio commercial. Believe it or not there is a method to the madness when it comes to writing effective radio advertising copy. A small investment of hiring a radio commercial production company will be well worth it versus you scribbling a few lines down on paper that your employees will inevitably tell you “sounds great”, yet your audience will completely miss the point of. Trust me I do this for a living and I’ve seen some very well-intentioned copy come across my desk from some very charismatic business owners, while the copy may look good it may not work. That is why we do what we do.

Step three: Identify the radio stations that best fits the audience you are trying to reach. This can be a bit tricky if you do not understand the demographics of radio. Just because you like a radio station, does not mean that your audience is listening to it. This is a pitfall that I see hundreds of business owners fall into every year. The business likes a specific type of music, while the target audience is listening to the polar opposite radio station. Ask the company that you had create your radio commercial if they can assist you with the media buy and negotiation with the radio station to help ensure your message gets to the right audience.

There are plenty of choices in marketing avenues these days. In fact, it can get overwhelming and confusing to pick the best one that suit your business need. There is one simple material though that you can take advantage of to help you gain good advantage over your competitors while making sure you boosts sales and profits. This one material we are talking about is the rack cards.

With an impressive design and good content, you can make your cards an effective marketing tool. It will generate new leads which making sure people get the important details about your business. With the right strategy and message, you can be sure to make your rack cards the best in the market. There are some design and printing essentials though that you need to first consider. They are as follows:

1- Keep them simple and clean. Often, a simple design is better than an overly attractive design. In terms of communicating a clear message, the simpler design will always look more interesting. Why don’t you just create a clean and straightforward design that will immediately tell people what kind of business you are? Resist the temptation to go over the board is you know that your customers won’t look at a confusing design.

2- Make your rack card warm and welcoming. No one will read a message that is cluttered and intimidating. People won’t even give a second look to this kind of material. It will be best if you create a design that is friendly and welcoming. Make people feel comfortable and they will surely patronize you.

3- Design with your target customers in mind. Knowing what your customers need and want will help you produce a card design that will appeal to them. This will make it easy for you to come up with designs that give you the best results.

4- Use the appropriate design elements. This includes the right images, colors, font, and layout. You have to attain the right mix of these elements to ensure that your rack card printing will look its best. Keep in mind that these elements will each convey a meaning so be very careful with your choice.

5- Use a template is necessary. You can use templates to make the design process quick and easy. Make sure that you choose the right template that will best reflect the kind of image and impression you want to convey to people. There are plenty of choices of templates online these days. Find the perfect template that will best suit your need.

6- Print in high quality. Because your cards will serve as your representative out there, you need to make sure that they are in their best quality. You have to get them printed well so they will look credible and professional in front of people. Find t
Be sure to double check everything, from the design to the texts and printing, so there are no errors and typos on your card. Once done well, you can guarantee to get good results from your rack card campaign. Start now with your own rack card print campaign.he perfect printer that will help you produce cards that you will put you in front of your customers and prospects.

Mary spends her days organizing clients, shelves and closets, but her own website marketing remains muddled. She told me she’s been working for 6 months to put the final touches on her content and finish her web site. (That’s not exaggerated: I’ve talked to people who have been in website development hell for 2 or 3 years.)

Mary’s spent a lot of her time making a plan. She’s got a date to launch the website. She’s hired people to update her blog and social media and other people to send out press releases. Her plan looks like the diagram on the right. Along the way, she decided she’d get someone to take a quick look at her content. That “someone” was me.

As we reviewed Mary’s website and sales letter, we realized that Mary’s content needed more than a quick look. She needed to clarify her target market and her position. She defined her niche as “business women 25-50 who felt overwhelmed,” which is what I call a pseudo-niche. It’s more or less targeted but needs some fine-tuning and some sizzle.

She needs to make those changes or she’ll be sending her clients – and herself – on a long journey to nowhere. She’ll move things along but there won’t be a big reward when she reaches her destination.

Mary isn’t unique. In fact, about half a dozen of my recent clients could be Mary. They’re smart professionals who realize the need to plan their business. But they’ve been guided to priorities that seem reasonable and realistic… until you go live with your project.

Logistics – the what-and-when plan – can save your business at the right time, but logistics can also kill your business when you -

- substitute logistic planning for developing a compelling message

- delay launching your website because you’re caught up in a planning maze

There are many good reasons why people get caught in the Logistics Trap.

First, many coaches wisely urge you to take action. After all, if you do nothing, you can be sure that nothing will happen. But if your action is not purposeful, you just get busy.

Second, many business owners are perfectionists who want to spell out every detail. It is so easy to fall in love with your plan, tenderly embracing every detail.

What can you do instead?

You can bypass the logistics trap in these 3 ways:

- Write your sales letter or 3 core website pages as your first step

- Define your features and benefits as you write your content.

- Recognize how each activity fits your position and your strengths as well as your niche.

One exercise I recommend to my own clients involves answering these questions:

“What pain does your target market experience?”
“What will their lives be like after they work with you?”
“What will you do to create this transformation?”

For instance, Mary might start by saying, “My clients feel overwhelmed and they will have less clutter after I work with them.” When we dig deeper, she would move to write something like this:

“My clients are time-starved, yet they lose 30-60 minutes every single day because they have to stop and hunt for keys, a particular sweater they want to wear, or a folder for a specific client. They pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in late fees because they lose their bills.

“When they work with me, they feel they gain 2 hours a day. I have a 5-step process that means you won’t be back to square one after I leave your home: you learn to…”

I’d encourage Mary to go even deeper in reviewing the benefits. What will her clients do with their newly discovered free time? What will they do with the money they save by not paying late fees? With their new peace of mind, what can they change in their lives?

Once we’re clear on the message and gotten some copy, Mary’s actions become purposeful. She stops planning for the sake of planning – putting dates on a calendar next to specific actions. She starts to ask questions like, “How will this activity relate to my message?” And more important, when she sends her clients to a website or sales letter, they’ll be more likely to sign up and become clients.

And she finally takes “Finish website” off her “To Do” list and goes on to spending more time with her clients, family, and friends.

Thus, you need to always be guarded against scammers. Not only would you be able to save yourself, you would also contribute to the constant vigilance that the public and the authorities put up against scams. After all, you know what they say about criminals not flourishing if there are no victims to prey on.

So how do you keep yourself safe from these scammers? Probably the best tip is to always be on your watch. You cannot always easily believe people when they offer you something that is too easy or too promising. It is not a matter of doubting every single offer made to you-it is being on the safe side.

Doing a little research would not hurt as well. In today’s age where almost everything can be searched in the Internet, it is possible to detect scams easily. There are always people and authoritative websites that do advisories and announcements about scams that affect others. So you just have to click through and if the procedure they are stating are the same as what is happening to you, then you know you have to clear out.

Finally, and the most important of all, is to keep from giving away valuable information and paying eagerly for something that you have just known or talked to recently. You need to protect yourself and giving away information indiscriminately would not do the trick. Especially in this present age, where there always seems to be something negative that happens, you cannot just trust anybody with valuable information about yourself and your business.

Always remember that protecting yourself from people who want to trick you will help not only to keep you safe but will also teach you the value of defending your properties, small business and your rights from the bad guys. You need to know all these to ensure safety.

Acquiring new customers is known as ‘front end’ marketing. Winning new customers is definitely an important way to increase sales, but customer retention or getting your current customers to come back to you is equally important. This concept is known as ‘back end’ marketing. Increasing the number of times your customers buy from you is the easiest way to increase sales, improve profit and grow your business.

Think about it, it can cost up to six times more to win a new customer than it does to have an existing customer purchase from you again. Why is this? Because you have invested time and money to acquire that customer for the first sale, but every additional sale after that involves very litt
e cost. So, for every single sale you make to an existing customer, you actually keep more as profit. If you focus on your current customers you will not need to spend much money on lead generation.

You might think that it is a difficult task to keep your customers coming back, but in fact that is far from the truth. There are five key strategies that you can use to encourage customers to return to you. These strategies include classifying them, asking them to return, providing an awesome service that they cannot refuse, nurturing them and using customer comments effectively.

Before you can set out on this path you need to know what your target customer return rate is. How do you go about doing that? It’s simple. All you need to do is review your records for the past year and estimate how many times your customers purchased something from you. This number will only ever be a ‘guestimate’ unless you are running a sophisticated CRM program, but that estimate is all you really need. The easiest way to estimate the number of purchases is to divide the total number of invoices written for the year by the number of unique customers on your system. Once you have done this, increase this number by 5% and that becomes your initial target customer return rate for the next year.

In many cases, the easiest way to get a customer to come back is to actually ask them to come back. If your customers are delighted with a particular product or service, it will be more than likely that they will want to continue the relationship. Making them feel important and valued will give them the incentive to do just that. Surveys have consistently found that 68% of customers who leave you for your competitor do so because of a perceived indifference. In other words, why would they come back if they don’t feel as though you value them?

Providing awesome service that your customers cannot refuse is another way to keep them coming back to you, again and again. How do you offer an awesome service? You offer a service that goes above and beyond the norm. Creating a team commitment to service can impress your customers enough to keep them returning and referring others to you.

Your commitment could make promises of performance standards [like same-day delivery] or it could explain your business ethics and mission. It could be anything you’d like, even a great telephone or selling technique. If you have a team of people who you work with, you cannot just tell them that you want your customers to be given awesome service, you need to train them so that they can deliver it consistently and effectively.

Nurturing your customers will help build relationships which encourage your customers to come back again and again. Think about it, people will be more inclined to buy from businesses that they trust and those that have nurtured them in some way. Another great thing about nurturing the relationships with your customers is that it is a cost-effective way to help your business become even more profitable. You won’t need to break your bank by any means; all you need to do is keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis. The more you keep in touch, the more likely it is that they will remember you and make a return visit and by so doing, increase sales and improve profit in your business.

There are plenty of ways to keep in touch with your customers such as sending regular mailings like newsletters, offers, discounts, coupons, service reminders, thank you notes, special articles of interest and so on. You can also make follow-up phone calls to make sure that they are 100% happy with the product or service that they received. Email marketing is popular among marketers, especially if you use an autoresponder service. An autoresponder will allow you to create messages or newsletters and set a time and date for those messages to be sent out. They will also reply to your customers, which will minimize the time you need to spend sending out and replying to customer emails – which allows you to focus on more important things, like your business.

Taking advantage of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook can help nurture these relationships as well because you can create that feeling of ‘community’ between you and your customers. Remember, if you go this route it is important to communicate with your customers as often as possible, because you will be showing them that you care about them and that you are there for their needs, that you are offering something that will benefit them.

This leads to customer comments – which are a great way to nurture your customers and to encourage them to return. For example, customer advisory boards can be useful because all of your customers can come together and discuss a particular aspect of the service they received, what they valued, what could be improved and so on. This can make a huge difference because you will be gaining feedback from your customers, and that feedback will tell you what you should improve upon or what they love most about your business, so that you can make that ‘thing they like’ stand out more. If you use any suggestions from your customers, let them know.

All in all, there are lots of ways that you can keep your current customers coming back time and time again. It might seem like there is a lot that you will need to do to keep them coming back, but really there isn’t. All it takes is a little dedication, feedback and communication, and you will be reaching out to your customers in a way that will build relationships. Remember, solid relationships will increase sales, improve profit and help you grow your business because people tend to buy from those that they trust.