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This article looks at how you inadvertently train your customers. Believe it or not, you are training your customers more than you realise.  Every time you do something in your business you train or reinforce your previous training in your customer’s minds.

This can be a good thing or it may not be.  It may be deliberate, or it may unintentional.  Most likely, you don’t even realise you’re doing it let alone how you train your customers on sometimes a daily basis.

I’ve been trained

A few years ago I was working with a business on a website redesign for my site (before SuperWAHM).  The business owner answered my emails very quickly, even on weekends.  And then one day I had to wait 24 hours for an email.  What?  I was stunned.  Why hadn’t she replied to me yet?  How long did I have to wait for a reply?  Sheesh….

This person hadn’t done anything wrong.  She simply took a day off.  However, because I had become accustomed to receiving an email reply within an hour or so, I was expecting that to continue.  I’d been trained.

You’re training your customers too

You do this with your customers, whether you realise it or not.  You train your customers to have certain expectations around your business, both good and bad.  They get accustomed to how you:

-          Answer emails

-          Send out newsletters

-          Publish blog posts

-          Your writing style and tone

-          Offer discounts.  A lot of customers will never buy from you at full price as you’ve trained them to wait for discounts.  Oops…

-          Reply on forums

-          Sales process

-          Package products – your branding, style of packaging and what you use

-          Your tone in any communications with your customers

Everything you do will train your customers

Every single time you interact, directly or indirectly, with your customers you are setting up an expectation and experience in their minds.

-          If you used to send your packages beautifully wrapped in tissue paper with gold stickers and curly ribbons, and you change that because of time, cost, whatever; you’ll have disappointed customers.

-          If you normally answer emails within an hour or so, and then take a day off; you’ll have people asking why it took you so long to reply.

There is nothing wrong with either of these two scenarios.  It’s simply about managing customer expectations and your personal boundaries.  If you tell your customers that you’re changing the packaging, in advance, then they’ll be expecting it.  If you tell your customers that weekends are just for your family and you don’t do business on weekends, they won’t expect emails from you then.

On the other hand, if you publish blog posts on a schedule then you need to make sure you have posts written in advance so you can keep to that schedule.  Miss a post at the normal time and readers will start asking what’s going on, and wondering why you missed it.

It’s all about what your customers have been trained to expect from you.

Make it intentional

No matter what it is, you are training your customers’ expectations of you and your business.  You may not even be aware that you’re doing it.  You are.  Make it deliberate, think about how your actions are impacting your customers, manage those expectations.

What do you think?  How are you training your customers?  What stories do you have about changing customer expectations?

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I’ve got a question for you all today – how do you use FaceBook in your business and what value do you get from it?

I’m writing a post on the use of FaceBook in business, specifically Business pages with fans, Profile pages and promoting your business on Facebook, and I’d love to hear your opinions on this.  I may well use some of the answers in the post (with a link to you and the proper attribution of course).

So tell me, how do YOU use FaceBook for your business and how does it work for you?  Do you have opinions on the use of FaceBook for businesses?  Come and share in the comments.

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The lovely Neil from Milk Relief Soap recently asked me this great question:

“What’s the difference between a business plan, and a marketing plan?”

I see a lot of people getting caught up in this, and often their business plan is actually more of a marketing plan.

The two are very much related; however they’re not the same.  I’ve got a different opinion from most people on what a Business Plan is and what it’s purpose is.  If you’ve looked at the Two Hour Business Plan then you’ll see that I define a Business Plan as being about what your business does, not a financial plan to take to the bank (although that’s part of it).

A Business Plan is ‘about’ your business – who your target market is, what you do (core business), your business goals, an action plan.

A Marketing Plan is how you attract customers and sell your product in order to achieve those goals – blogging, advertising, networking, attraction and conversion.

In October last year I gave a talk at The Business Mums Network Pampering Day on Business Planning.  To illustrate how the Business Plan, Marketing Plan and Action Plan all fit together, have a look at this diagram.

Make sense?  Your Business Plan is what encapsulates your entire business activities and goals, what drives and directs your actions.  Your Marketing Plan is one aspect of that, which directs your monthly, weekly and daily actions towards achieving those business goals.

In some respects your Business Plan is the What, and the Marketing Plan is the How.

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Do you have a business question that you would like personally answered?  Email me and ask away!

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This one of my favourite posts that was originally published early last year.  Now updated and edited to be even more good-er.  Enjoy!

I was cleaning the shower the other day.  This is something I do regularly.  Once a year is regular, right? Just kidding – I clean it a lot more often than that.  While sloshing water around and scrubbing the tiles it occurred to me that cleaning the shower is in many ways like marketing your home business.

Read through and let me know what you think.

Firstly it needs to be done regularly. I once lived in a house where we thought the bottom half of the shower door and side was frosted glass, and that round bit on the floor was anti-slip coating.  About a week or so after moving in, I cleaned it.  Yes, it was ordinary clear glass underneath and plain tiled floor.  Yuck.

If you clean your shower regularly, it’s easy.  If you market your business regularly, it’s easy.  Consistency in small efforts is a lot easier and yields much greater rewards than neglecting it and having to put in hours of backbreaking, gut-wrenching work.  It’s much easier to keep up than to catch up.

If it’s done wrong you could end up with a greater mess. Sloshing buckets of water around may be great fun, watching it splash, however it has a tendency to, well, splash.  And go everywhere, generally all over the bathroom walls and floor – outside of the shower.   Or it just rinses the walls and floor and doesn’t actually clean anything.

You can spend as much money and time as you have on marketing, but if it’s not directed to the right people, if it’s not solving a problem for them, if it’s not compelling them to buy, then it’s a waste of time and money.  Know why you're using a particular marketing tactic, do it right, be focused and see the benefits. Make sure you're marketing to a niche and not a demographic.

Use the right tools and know why you’re using them. You wouldn’t go to clean the shower with the vacuum cleaner would you?  Or with a leaf rake?  Of course not, they’re tools for other tasks.  You go into the shower with some kind of cleaner, cloths to wipe, some way to rinse off the walls, bleach to clean the tiles if needed, maybe a squeegee.  You know precisely what you’re doing (cleaning the shower) and the appropriate tools that you need to do that.

This is where you need to know your target market intimately and thoroughly, inside and out.  Why do they buy?  Where and how do they buy?  What solution does your product provide?  How do you market specifically and directly to these people?  What medium do they use (online, magazines, forums) to find out about products and ask questions?  There’s no point putting an advertisement in the financial times newspaper if your target market loves parenting forums.  Don't put money into any form of marketing just because someone says you should.  Know how it relates to your market and what result you expect from it.

It takes work and planning. You clean the walls before the floor.  Put bleach on the tiles (my apologies to the environmentalists here) and let it start working before you begin to scrub.  And no matter what product you put on the glass and tiles, it still needs some elbow grease to be spotlessly clean.  With cleaning, as with marketing, you need to plan the best order to do things.

You can’t sell a product and then tell the customer why they need it.  The customer needs to be educated about what it does and why they want it.  You, the business owner, need to make this happen.  Customers don't come up and say “I want to buy this widget, what does it do?”.  Nuh uh.  Customers see your marketing, which tells them how your widget solves their problem and world peace at the same time.  And then they come to buy.

And lastly you need to be committed. If you just give the shower a quick swipe over with a dry cloth once a month  then you might think you can call it ‘cleaning the shower’.  But is it really?  If you put an ad in the cheapest magazine once a month, is it the ads fault that no one buys?  I have a friend who often tells me that she wishes she could have a profitable online business.  And then goes on to tell me how she's not interested in writing blog posts, or going on forums, or spending money on upgrading her website.  She’s not committed to the process or the work required.  If your business isn’t profitable, or not as profitable as you’d like, check your own commitment and activity levels first.

What do you think?  Are you using the right tools in the right way to clean your shower as efficiently and effectively as possible?

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post I’d sent the business owner a message to say that I hadn’t appreciated the hard sell etc, and by the way, where had she gotten my contact details from? (my phone number isn’t on the website).  I was polite, just very clear that I wasn’t happy. This was her response, sent to me two weeks later (there’s a clue, it took her two weeks to respond):

Hi Melinda,
We had your details in the database from a previous contact you’d had with ‘her life partner’- when you were interested in commission only salespeople. The two of you had a conversation and that’s how your details ended up in there.

Uh no, she’s wrong: I’d filled out a free website audit and he’d called me about that, and to try and sell me on a seminar to improve my website. I said no to that one too.

You were rude to him also (after asking for his help).

Wrong again: filling out a free website program does not constitute asking for help in my book. And we’d ended up having a really good conversation, turned out we had a couple of mutual connections. So… I was rude to him and he was still happy to continue a conversation off-topic and talk for nearly an hour? I don’t think so.

Don’t worry – we apologised profusely to ‘salesperson’ (Who was very upset at how rude you were to her) for having left you on the database – and removed you immediately.

Seriously, if she’s that sensitive then she shouldn’t be in telephone sales. I didn’t swear at her or abuse her in any way, nor did I hang up on her. I did interrupt her and speak over the top of her and told her that I didn’t appreciate her manipulative sales questions. Rude? I’d say the rudeness was on her side as she refused to accept my ‘No’ and kept pushing the sale.

As for all of your other comments … I could write a book … and actually, probably will – but look at the end of the day it comes down to this:

‘salesperson’ did nothing wrong.

If you understood sales – even a little bit – you’d know that she did precisely what she should have done.

Right down to burning you.

Really? Since when has it been accepted marketing practice to ‘burn’ a contact? Since when is it good salesmanship to push the sale when the person has told you very clearly ‘No’ three times?

And if I don’t understand sales ‘even a little bit’ then how have I run a successful online business for six years then?

Because you are not now, nor will you ever be our client.

I don’t want to “keep in contact with people” on the off chance that one day, maybe they might want to buy something.

Ok, so if I don’t want to buy your very expensive course today, you don’t want me to be able to contact you to buy it in six months time? Wow. How many contacts is she losing because they don’t buy today, right now?

On top of which – we sell. On the phone. Every day. If you had stayed on our database you would have gotten more calls from more sales people who you would have upset being mean to.

Maybe you should spend a bit of time looking at your own obvious issues around sales, rather than attacking 23 year old girls who are doing their jobs.

Yes, I have issues around sales. I have serious issues around pushy hard-sell sales people who won’t take no for an answer.

Attacking 23 year old girls who are doing their job? Sorry, wrong again. I never ‘attacked’ her in any way. Definitely not picking up any guilt for that. Don’t try and make it my fault because I disagreed with your staff.

Good luck with everything.

Rest 100% assured that NO ONE from my company will EVER contact you again … even if you begged us to.

I think I was supposed to be sad and sorry that they’ll never contact me again. Really, that was the best news I’d had all week. And I don’t beg.

Feedback is a part of business

No one is too precious to receive feedback. And it’s not all going to be good. Get over it. If someone took the effort to let you know that (in their opinion) there was something lacking in your business then the least you can do is thank them for the effort they took to write.

Note that I didn’t say you had to agree with the feedback and tell them you’d make changes. You don’t have to agree with it, you just have to be nice about it. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Get over your own issues around feedback. It’s not always going to be a nice pat on the back. That kind of sycophantic feedback won’t help you improve and grow. If you get a brickbat thrown at you then consider if there’s any truth in it. If there is then take it on board and use it to improve. If there’s not truth in it then simply ignore it.

Attempting to bully and score over the person who sent it just exposes your own issues. And it’s really bad PR when they write a blog post that is seen buy thousands of readers who could have been their customers….

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We all need to market and sell our stuff, right? That’s the whole point of being in business. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to sell.

Sell something the right way and the person is happy they dealt with you and everyone is pleased by the whole transaction. Sell the wrong way – or try to – and it ends up a bun fight.

How Not to Cold Call

A few weeks ago I had the dubious pleasure of receiving a business cold call. By the time the call finished I was so angry I rang my husband at work to vent – the venting took longer than the call. (Hubby ended up being late for a meeting, and told his boss “She was way angrier than you, and I have to live with her” LOL)

Normally cold calls don’t bother me. We’re on the Do-Not-Call register so if we DO receive any cold calls it’s generally for my business. Usually it’s enough to tell the person very clearly “Nope, not interested, thanks for your time” and that’s the end of it. Not this call. Here’s how NOT to cold call someone:

The one thing they did right

They rang during the day. Ring me in the evening and you’ve got me offside from the second I pick up the phone. Business hours people, that’s what they’re for.

I love you forever, what’s your name?

The salesperson introduced herself and told me the name of the person she was calling for – I slightly know this business owner from a couple of forums that we’re both on. Her script, after the intro, went something like:

Our business helps other small businesses just like yours to grow and make more money. Tell me about your business, what do you do?

Huh? You rang me, you help businesses just like mine, but you don’t actually know what my business does?

Imagine you’re in a bar and a complete stranger comes up to you, takes you in his (or her) arms, looks into your eyes and says in complete seriousness “I love you and want to marry you, have kids with you and be together until we die. Oh, and what’s your name?”

You’d be like “Get away from me you freakin weirdo!”

That’s what this call was like. First you tell me your business is to help small businesses just like mine to grow – and then you ask me what my business is? If you don’t know what I do then how do you know that your business can help me?

Do some research. Look at my website – it’ll tell you. That’s what it’s there for (ok, one of the things). Or at least reword your script so it’s not so contradictory and doesn’t make me think you’re ignorant.

Pushy Pushy

I told the salesperson a very brief and general description of what I do. She suggested that I needed to narrow down my niche. I said it was a lot more focussed but my description would do for now. That didn’t please her at all. Did she really expect me to discuss my business in detail with a stranger who called me?

And then she started on her spiel. She was selling a course on creating info-products. I’d seen some details from the business owner on a forum, so I knew what she was talking about.

“No thanks, I’m not interested at the moment”

You know how in sales books they tell you that a ‘No’ is only an objection? Well, this person had been reading those books.

She began on the marketing questions that are designed so you either have to sound like a complete idiot to turn it down or you open the door for more selling. Her question was something along the lines of:

“Do you want to learn how to sell more effective and higher priced information products to your customers?”

Well, what am I supposed to say? “No, I like being broke and not selling anything” how stupid would that answer be? But if I say “Of course I do” then she’s got an open door to keep pushing the sale.

So I didn’t answer. I pointed out that it’s a typical marketing question designed to either open the door or make me look stupid, and I don’t appreciate being manipulated.  And said again “No, I’m not interested in this product”

The pushy got worse

I’m sure she took my ‘No’ as a personal challenge because she continued to try and sell to me. I ended up saying ‘No’ at least three times, very clearly. I told her “I’m not interested and I’m not your ideal client” and she kept on pushing to sell!

At this point I was interrupting her and talking over the top of her. Rude, yes, but it was the only way to let her know I wasn’t interested short of outright hanging up on her.

It ended when I told her (again) I wasn’t interested and was going to hang up. At that point she agreed I wasn’t their client and we said a rather terse goodbye.

Do unto others….

How many of us enjoy having someone disrespect us and ignore us when we tell them no? Who wants to get off a call feeling they’ve just been manipulated and sold something they didn’t really want? Why are these sales techniques still being taught?

A few years ago I read “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by John Cialdini. In it he discusses the brain conditioning and instinctive responses that we’re all wired with. Marketers hook into this brain wiring and structure their questions so we’ll give them the answer they want rather than look a fool.

Marketing or a Used Car Salesman?

Cold calling works – I won’t deny that. But at what ethical cost? Do you really want to sell to someone knowing that they bought because you twisted their responses? That’s why Naomi and Sonia created ‘Marketing for Nice People’ last year, because everyone is so fed up with the manipulative, sleazy sales techniques that are being used. (Marketing for Nice People is no longer available unfortunately, but if you’re looking for a marketing course try the Marketing 101 – great course!)

The point of marketing is to make the customer be panting to buy the product, to be standing there with their wallet in hand throwing money at you. Not because it’s the only way to get rid of you, but because they can see how that product is going to change their life forever and THEY MUST HAVE IT NOW!!!

Pt 1, the end

After the call, when I’d calmed down reasonably, I sent a message to the business owner to let her know that the call went badly and that I hadn’t appreciated being pushed and manipulated by a hard-selling salesperson. Tomorrow I’ll show you her response, and we’ll have a chat about receiving feedback. Let me just say, her reply was even more entertaining than the cold call!

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I’m giving away one copy of this fantastic book by C.J. Hayden ‘Get Clients Now!’.  It was originally recommended to me by a friend who has a very successful business and I’m now following the recipe in this book – it’s amazingly effective and it works.

This book is an essential in any Work at Home Moms library and you can win it simply by leaving a comment below.

From the back cover:

If you’re ready to dramatically increase your client base, this brand new edition of Get Clients Now! is the one book you need.  Completely revised and featuring scores of tactics, tools and foolproof strategies customisable for any professional service business, this powerhouse book gives you a unique and proven 28-day program for locating, landing, and keeping new clients in greater numbers than you’ve ever dreamed possible.

You’ll learn: how to choose the right marketing tactics for your situation and personality; a foolproof method for diagnosing exactly what’s missing in your marketing and how to fix it; how to use Internet marketing techniques, including e-zines, SEO and blogging; hands-on approaches for replacing unproductive cold-calling with the power of relationship marketing; and much much more.

Please note that this book is for Service businesses rather than retail.

How to enter

Simply leave a comment below and tell me what you like most about SuperWAHM (or WAHM Biz Builder as we were).  The competition runs for four days.  On Saturday 16th I’ll draw a random number for the winner and post in the comments as well as email the winner.

I’m more than happy to post anywhere in the world, so Good luck!

And the winner is….. Stephanie, from Scratchpad Secretaries, comment #16

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I’m giving away one copy of this fantastic book by C.J. Hayden ‘Get Clients Now!’.  It was originally recommended to me by a friend who has a very successful business and I’m now following the recipe in this book – it’s amazingly effective and it works.

This book is an essential in any Work at Home Moms library and you can win it simply by leaving a comment below.

From the back cover:

If you’re ready to dramatically increase your client base, this brand new edition of Get Clients Now! is the one book you need.  Completely revised and featuring scores of tactics, tools and foolproof strategies customisable for any professional service business, this powerhouse book gives you a unique and proven 28-day program for locating, landing, and keeping new clients in greater numbers than you’ve ever dreamed possible.

You’ll learn: how to choose the right marketing tactics for your situation and personality; a foolproof method for diagnosing exactly what’s missing in your marketing and how to fix it; how to use Internet marketing techniques, including e-zines, SEO and blogging; hands-on approaches for replacing unproductive cold-calling with the power of relationship marketing; and much much more.

Please note that this book is for Service businesses rather than retail.

How to enter

Simply leave a comment below and tell me what you like most about SuperWAHM (or WAHM Biz Builder as we were).  The competition runs for four days.  On Saturday 16th I’ll draw a random number for the winner and post in the comments as well as email the winner.

I’m more than happy to post anywhere in the world, so Good luck!

And the winner is….. Stephanie, from Scratchpad Secretaries, comment #16

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Yesterday we looked at why you need a Newsletter list and where to get one set up. Today we’re looking at how to use it.

Ok, I have an autoresponder, now what do I do with it?

That’s easy:

1. You get subscribers to sign up to your list; and

2. You email them.

Finding Subscribers

So where do your subscribers come from? Anywhere you can legally and ethically find them…

Signup box on your website – have it clear, easy to see when people land there. For best results, ask for simply their First Name and Email Address. That’s all, just those two pieces of information.

Free Offering – give people a free gift for giving you their contact details. Offer a free report or ebook, related to your business. DON’T give away free consultations or anything that requires an ongoing time commitment!

Stalls, markets – have a signup form for people who would like to be on your list. If you do this, make sure you add them to your list within 24 hours of the stall and email them immediately to welcome them. Don’t leave it for long because they’ll forget they filled in the form and will delete your email or mark it as spam.

Promote on FaceBook – If you’ve got a fan page on FaceBook then you can add a tab or box with your signup form in it. Remember to let your fans know about it when you put it up.

Competitions – run a competition where people have to sign up to your newsletter list to join in. Check with your local government for rules and regulations concerning competitions first though.

Ask people – when you meet people at networking functions etc, and they express an interest in what you do simply ask them if they would like to join your newsletter list.

Joint Ventures – run a promotion or competition with an another business, complementary to yours,

What do I email them about?

Anything that is relevant or interesting for your subscribers. Unless you’ve set up your list to be very clearly a Sales list – like our VIP list, where people are told when subscribing that they’ll receive sales offers and it’s not a newsletter list – then you need to send interesting content to your subscribers.

I’m not saying you can’t market to them, that’s the primary purpose of having a newsletter list, I’m saying that you need to send them information that is interesting. And bring in the sales content in a nice way, without beating them over the head with it.

- A new product you’re releasing
- Product of the month special deals
- Case studies and testimonials
- New and interesting uses for a product
- Developments and new findings relating to your core business
- What’s been happening in your business
- Profile a client
- Answer questions from clients (be careful of confidentiality issues, ask for permission first before using a clients name)
- Profile one of your staff members
- Articles to help your subscribers
- Subscriber only discounts
- ????

What else can you add to this list?

Questions or comments about Newsletters and ezines?  Please come and share your thoughts in the comments.

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Over the last few weeks I’ve has several discussions with coaching clients regarding email lists, why they need them, how to collect names and how to use the list.

I’ve written about newsletter lists before, in The Money’s in Your Newsletter List and a guest post at IttyBiz on Putting the Permission Back into Marketing Take a few minutes and go read both those posts, then come back to this one.  Go ahead, we’ll wait for you….

Why do I need a newsletter list?

You need it so you can market to people, so you can contact them again after the initial meeting. Statistics show that it will take up to seven contacts before a person is ready to buy from you. If you’ve met someone who is interested in what you do, what’s the best way to contact them again? Your newsletter list.

But I already have a blog and RSS

Yes, yes, I know you do. So do I. And I also have a newsletter list  for our VIPs.  (Are you a VIP?  If you’re not already, go sign up now.  We both know you ARE important so go join the VIP list) What’s the difference between having a newsletter list and RSS?

People on your newsletter list have asked to be there because they’re interested in what you’re selling. Most people on your RSS list probably don’t read your feed regularly. (Sorry for the bad news, but it’s true) When people are busy – and we all are – feeds are one of the first things to be dropped.

People often sign up for RSS feed if they’re unsure whether they like the site’s content and direction.  They sign up to keep an eye on it without having to go back to the site.  People who sign up for your newsletter have proactively indicated that they’re definately  interested in hearing more from you. They’ve said they want to buy from you.

I have no idea how to set up a newsletter list

Autoresponders are brilliant. They take the hard work out of subscriptions, un-subscribers, setting up the list, emailing etc. Two of the best are MailChimp and Aweber. MailChimp is free up to 500 subscribers, Aweber is paid for.

Aweber has a higher delivery rate and more formatting options but is a a little harder to use (not much, just not quite as user friendly until you get used to it).  MailChimp’s pricing increases as you get more subscribers and if you send more emails each month, Aweber’s pricing stays the same no matter how many subscribers you have or how many emails you send.   It’s your choice which option is best for your business.

Best-practice – Single or Double opt-in

All autoresponders should give you the option to have either single opt-in or double opt-in. Single opt-in is where a subscriber fills in their details in the form, clicks ‘submit’ and they’re on your list. Double opt-in is where they fill in their details and click ‘submit’, your autoresponder sends them a confirmation email and they have to click on the link to confirm their subscription.

Single opt-in is not complicate with the CAN-Spam Act, however it’s still widely used. Double opt-in has a lower confirmation rate, which is why so many people stick with single opt-in.

Double opt-in is the best practice. It’s the safest option to use and helps give your subscribers confidence that you’re not going to spam them. If you’re taking care of them from the beginning then you’ll likely continue to do so.

Part 2 on using Autoresponders and newsletters will follow tomorrow.