Have you experienced the famine cycle of business lately? A client complained, "I get so frustrated with being overwhelmed with business one week and famished the next. The truth is many business professionals experience the ebb and flow of business when they first start out. Some never break out of this daunting cycle. Their businesses eventually fail for they never learn to balance the ebb and flow with consistent marketing. A mentor friend advised me, "To create daily sales, you must market daily." Here are five more of those top ten things to include in your marketing plan to boost your sales with easy marketing: 1. Create a referral system. Novice service business owners often think referrals are automatic. The truth is the more you ask for referrals the more you will get. Most people need to be prompted, asked or even enticed to make referrals. Include referral systems as a part of your regular marketing strategies. Ask for referrals on every proposal, invoice and marketing piece that leaves your office. Do this; your referrals will grow and gain momentum. 2. Automate your billing systems. Setup a payment system on your website. It cost more than the normal receiving and depositing checks. But it saves time. Use a credit card gateway that you can accept payments online and offline. Or if you have low-budget constraints consider one of the 3rd party payment processors like PayPal, Stormpay, 2Checkout, etc. 3. Create templates of best-practice business forms and marketing collateral. All business professionals love time-savers. Creating templates of your best practice proposals, agreements, contracts and marketing materials will save time. Be sure to pre-fill in all vitals to save time with repeat tasks. 4. Dig for gold in your customer files. Do you realize your most profitable trail leads to your current and former customers? Most business professionals don't. They are too busy trying to seek after new customers that they neglect what they already have. According to a survey conducted by Fortune magazine it is FIVE times as expensive to get a new customer as it is to sell to an existing customer. 5. Outsource Marketing services. Leverage your time. Use your skills at the highest level; delegate or outsource the task your skills are lowest in. Or if your budget permits, outsource all your periodic mailings, article submissions, telemarketing to set appointments, reminder notes, etc. So how did your plan rate on a scale of 1-10? Seasoned service business owners most likely already have their plan in place. Even so, no matter where your experience level is, you can balance your business profit cycles by including: valuable content on your site, a systematic way to drive traffic, automatically keeping in touch with prospects and clients, expanding marketing collateral, habitual marketing, a good referral system, automated billing system, templates of best practice business and marketing materials, soliciting previous customers and outsourcing your marketing services. Sound overwhelming? Dont worry. Even starting with 2 or 3 of these tasks will help stabilize your business flow. Start now. Put these tips into practice one by one and break the feast and famine cycle for good. Give your sales a perpetual sales boost with consistent marketing. Go ahead. Market daily and prosper daily. |
