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We hope you find this arcthve useful. A subscription to The Small Business Advisor Newsletter is free. Subscribe now - it's easy! The Small Business Advisor Newsletter for December, 1998
NOTES/TIPS/etc NEED MORE ENERGY? Running and marketing a small business takes LOTS of ENERGY and STAMINA, right? I've been a satisfied consumer of Shaklee vitamins and health products for years. If you'd like to reduce fatigue and boost your energy, e-mail my friend Nancy Brown at nobrown@erols.com and ask her for free information about Shaklee's high energy vitamins and wellness products. TELE ANSWERING MACHINES. Don't just record your message and forget it. Call yourself and see how it makes you feel. Anxious? Bored? Is it too long? Are you talking too fast? You want that message to be friendly and informative - you want the caller to leave a message! Take a couple of extra minutes now and win a few more customers later. INSURANCE INFORMATION. Got a question about small business or home-based business insurance? Looking for an agent? Check out the Insurance Information Institute website at http://www.iii.com. Among other things, they have a complete State by State listing of insurance associations. MARKETING TIP: If you take orders via purchase orders offer a small discount for prepay or payment within 5 days - you will be amazed at how many customers will take advantage of this and you get your money up front! ANOTHER MARKETING TIP: When shipping your product be sure to include catalog information on other products you sell as well as any specials you are offering. Also, if possible, give the customer a "reward" for doing business with you - for example, include a certificate for a 10% discount on their next order. SCANNERS: If you are in the market for a high quality flatbed scanner you might be surprised how much you get for your dollar these days - prices have dropped a lot for this handy tool. Check out the HP ScanJet 6200C which sells for around $400. Visit HP at http://www.hp.com/go/scanjet MS WORD TIP: Here is a neat tip for those of you using Word 97. Try this for drawing various types of straight line separators. Type any of the following characters three times and press Enter: #, *, -, =, ~ Pretty neat, actually. SEARCHING THE WEB. PC magazine just did a review of the major search engines. Yahoo is number one for simple searches (http://www.yahoo.com) and Northern Light for complex, advanced searching (http://www.northernlight.com). STATE TAX RATES. Looking for tax rate information for a specific state or states. Check out http://www.town-usa.com/statetax/ EXTRA INCOME. Do you maintain a mailing list? If you have collected only a few thousand names, you can generate income by renting these names to other businesses. The easiest way to do this is through a list broker. We use HR Direct (http://www.hrdirect.net). They can provide full management services for your list as well as assist you with direct mailing campaigns and finding mailing lists for you to use. VIRUS PROTECTION Okay, listen up! Which of you do not have any virus protection for your computer? The other day - for the first time - we were (almost) the victim of a "macro" virus. What a major inconvenience this would have been if we didn't have a virus checker! The virus came to us via a Word attachment to an e-mail. It is doubtful that the sender even knew the document was infected. Save yourself a lot of trouble - get a virus checker. My recommendation is McAfee "Virus Scan." Download it by visiting, http://cws.internet.com/32virus.html#virus. It works in the background and can be updated easily. Even better, it's only $30. VERY cheap insurance. Do it now! WHY INTERNET
BUSINESS WILL STAY STRONG EVEN IF THE ECONOMY GOES BAD. Day after day news media warns us the world's economy may be in serious trouble. Storm clouds are on our economic horizon. Japan, once the most profitable nation in the world, is having deep money troubles. Experts say Japan is now where the United States was at the start of our Great Depression back in the 1930s. Russia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia are also having serious economic problems. Hunker down, a world depression could be on the way. Does this gloom and doom apply to the Internet? Will thousands of small Internet business be forced to close down? I don't think so. Here's why. Internet business is still brand new. Even the old-timers have only been on- line for three or four years. In many ways, we're just now figuring out how Internet business works. And guess what? It appears to be very different from regular business. Small and versatile is a big advantage. Big businesses dominate the traditional business world. The Walmart's and MicroSoft's have steadily forced smaller, family-owned businesses out of the way. Not so on the Internet. Three out of four Internet businesses are very small, often only one person working from home. Some of the most successful web sites are run by a single person still working a regular job. They take care of their Internet business before work, during lunch, and late into the evening. Small businesses are versatile. They can change directions at a moment's notice. That's a big advantage when times are hard. A big company has specialized employees and materials stockpiled to fill a particular need. If the economy changes and that need dries up, the big biz is stuck. Meanwhile, the one-person Internet business can change its direction in an afternoon. You can take down your big web site offering investment advice and put up an equally impressive web site showing people how to get out of debt. No employees to retrain. No leases to get out of. Internet business can personalize. Every indicator of how the future will be points to a much greater demand for personalized services. Instead of buying a one-size-fits-all service from suppliers, you will enjoy services and products that are closely tailored to exactly what you want and need. Internet leaders, including Bill Gates, have said they believe the future of the Internet lies in personalized services supplied by small companies and individuals. The Internet may be at odds with the Market. This idea is a tad demanding, but I think it's important to understanding why the Internet probably won't feel the pinch of a bad economy. Market economics, the basic principles that govern business, doesn't seem to fit the Internet very well. Market economics generally encourage big companies to get bigger, buying up and out-maneuvering smaller companies. The biggest companies dominate their industry. Sometimes they grab a huge percentage of all sales in their particular field. This is very hard to do on the Internet. It may be impossible to build an Internet-based monopoly. I could raise millions of dollars and create the biggest, coolest web site business in history. That doesn't keep you and 1,000 other aggressive folks from doing the same thing tomorrow and taking my advantage away. What can you do to profit from coming hard times? Economic downturns can be scary times. It's hard to know if you should start or expand a business or keep your money in the bank. Don't spend money you don't have to. Yet economic hard times can pose a terrific opportunity for people working in a new area like the Internet. While traditional business models stall, Internet business surges ahead on the shoulders of a very different way of doing business. Make your Internet presence BIG. Expand your web site. Jazz up the look. Add lots of helpful articles, add links to useful sites, and create alliances with other entrepreneurs. Keep your web site as focused as you can. Let people know you specialize in an area or line of products. When customers need a particular thing, they'll know you're the specialist that can give them personalized help. Finally, remember the wise old saying: When business is bad, advertise. The Internet shows little honor to those who come in with lots of start-up money. Instead, the Net rewards those who are popular. The more visitors your web site and email box have, the more power you have on the Internet. Publicize your web site, your business, and your name. Distill your name and main benefits down to a short, easy sentence and put that sentence everywhere you can without spamming. Advertise in email newsletters. Put banners on sites like your own. Send out press releases to media. Participate in newsgroups. Paint your promotional efforts with big broad strokes. Spend as much as half your time promoting. By looking big and providing tightly focused products and services to a well defined group of customers, you can ride the Internet wave into the future. It could well be a future that gives the Internet new and greater prominence. (Kevin Nunley supplies marketing advice, copy writing, and web design. Read all his marketing articles at http://www.DrNunley.com Reach him at DrNunley@aol.com or (801)253-4536) Savvy Tips for
the Telephone - 10 Secrets for Success The phone is one of your most powerful selling tools. Successful sales people know it's not what you're saying but how you say it. Here are a few tips to help you maximize your phone potential: 1. Get to the point fast. Set your objectives before you call and present them in a timely manner that will maintain your prospect's attention. 2. Use your company's name frequently. By familiarizing prospects with your service or product you gain customer confidence and establish fast rapport. 3. Don't waste time! Qualify prospective customers to discover if your product or service meets their needs and budget. 4. Acknowledge complaints. Empathize with customers who have problems with your company. An irate customer can be calmed easily when you acknowledge his complaint and work toward a solution. 5. Avoid sounding rehearsed. A spontaneous sounding voice conveys to the prospect that you care about her in particular. 6. Preplan. Have a list prepared before each call with the information needed for the sell. This equips you to answer questions promptly, leaving additional time to stress valuable points. 7. Use testimonials to support your claims. Testimonials give valid support to what you are saying and cast aside doubts a customer might have. 8. Ask questions. This places you in control of the conversation. By directing the conversation you are able to communicate more effectively and set the prospective customer at ease. 9. Record your presentation. You can improve your presentation immeasurably by reviewing your approach. This aids you in recognizing weak points in your conversations and which areas of your business you should emphasize. 10. Start with a smile. A smile on the outside brings joy to the inside! So make certain you always begin your conversation with a smile. A smile adds a pleasant tone to your voice that consumers can hear and feel. This conveys a sense of warmth and genuineness that consumers find hard to resist. Thus, with a smile, you're not only adding a natural boost to your mood but you're eliminating phone barriers as well. A Winning Opening . . . The first four sentences you speak determine whether your prospect will listen to the remainder of your presentation. These sentences should include: 1. Positive introduction.
2. End result of
product or service. 3. New or exciting
developments or techniques. 4. A question that
cannot be refused. Here's an example: "M r. Smith, this is Cathy Stringer with Fermont Electronics in Atlanta, Georgia. Our company specializes in customized computer software designed specifically for small businesses like your own. The purpose of my phone call is to inform you of our new accounting program. We are really excited about this new service and have received great customer response. Is there any reason you would not want to hear more about it?" "No." "Great, let me ask you this..." Now What? Start on the path to more effective communication today by developing a winning opener and the rest will come easy. Remember the person on the other end of the line wants to succeed as much as you do. If your product or service will aid customers in achieving success then you are doing them a favor. If you can convince the customers of this, then the sale is guaranteed. With the tips provided and a positive attitude your telephone techniques will sell! Return to top of page - Back to Home Page - Back to Archive Index |