Study after study reveals that when you say “Thank you” to your customers, they both spend more money and tell their friends about the exceptional service and products you deliver, increasing your profits. Volumes chronicle how employee productivity zooms when appreciation is expressed, raising your margins. Vendors go the extra mile to extend credit and deliver “just in time” when they hear gratitude regularly, not just in November, and keep your cash flowing.

Giving thanks works in business. But you’re already doing more with less and the last thing you want is another item on your to-do list. So what are the most effective and efficient ways for you to express gratitude to these important players in your business’ success?

Here are some tips you can use to develop the profitable habit of saying “Thank you” to your customers, employees, and vendors not just in November, but year-round:

• Be specific in your thanks. It’s one thing to say, “I appreciate what you did today. Thanks a lot.” That’s a soap-bubble comment. Pretty while it lasts, but gone in seconds. It’s general and vague. When you thank them for something specific, that’s Velcro. That’s a thanks they remember because it sticks. You hook your gratitude to something the employee did. For instance, an employee just handled a difficult phone call with a customer really well. Thank them for that specific activity.
• Appreciate the process. Target your appreciation on what the employee or vendor did. Let’s go back to the worker who took the phone call. Avoid telling the employee, “Thanks for helping me keep that customer.” That’s just an outcome that benefits you. Say, “I like how you hung in there when that customer was being difficult. You were really patient and respectful.” The same type of strategy goes for vendors. Give thanks for doing something that was an extra-mile effort for them, recognizing the above-and-beyond work.
• It’s about them, not you. Showing that you know something about them, and that you’re able to place yourself in their shoes, is incredibly valuable. Connect your gift-giving with life beyond the business walls. If a vendor became a grandpa, give him a copy of “Goodnight, Moon” to read to the little one. If an employee’s mother died of breast cancer this year, make an end-of -the-year donation to Race for the Cure in her name. Such intimacy breaks the relationship ice in a transformational, not just transactional, direction which is the game-changing pathway to greater profits.
• Go old school with your thanks. In this pixelated world of emails and texts, Facebook and Twitter, the simple and quick act of writing a handwritten expression of gratitude can go a long way. There’s something special today about a handwritten note. I keep a stack of cards and envelopes with me to write thank you notes on a flight when returning from a workshop or coaching session. It takes about three minutes per card. You create return business when you take pen in hand and write, “Thank you,” to your customers. Just say, “I know you could do business with others, but you chose us. Thank you! We treasure our relationship.” (**See Ldesign Company Special on custom Thank You cards)

Implement these tips, and your business will likely say “Thank you” back to you as you increase your profits year-round.

Courtesy: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220770

Most people think of networking only through the traditional venues, whether chamber of commerce events, business contact referral groups, or online sites such as LinkedIn. But holiday parties, including professional and industry social events where you can network with people outside your business, can be an even better time to introduce yourself to a new contact or share a friendly conversation with someone you already know.

To make the most of holiday party networking, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Be prepared. Try to learn in advance the names of people you will likely chat with, their jobs and their recent accomplishments. You will need to do a little homework, perhaps a Google search and a look at their LinkedIn or Facebook pages. Use the information you glean to break the ice.

• Ask good questions. From the CEO to intern level, people love to talk about themselves. Here are some suggested conversation starters: How did you get started? What were some of the challenges with. . . ? Have you read any good books lately? My favorite is: How can I help you?

• Have a “teaser” topic ready. Approaching the end of the year, every business executive is thinking about how to increase profits and performance in the new year. Have an idea ready that describes the steps you’d take to improve your networking contact’s business. Make this research part of the homework you do ahead of time. But don’t give away the goose; save the details for a later conversation.

• Don’t have more than a couple of drinks. It’s a party, but you don’t want to smell of liquor or be too relaxed when you approach people you want to connect with. Impressions count. Make the right one.

• Be confident of your value. Introducing yourself to an executive can be an intimidating experience, so give yourself a pep talk before the party. Make a list of your accomplishments over the past year and figure out how you might weave them into conversations. Once you’ve got that down, you should feel good about yourself.

• Use the introduction to segue to a future meeting. You don’t want to end your chat at the party. The endgame here is to open the door for a follow-up meeting one-to-one. But remember that a party is a social gathering, so keep it natural and leave them intrigued.

• Honor the event. This is really important. Make sure that when networking at a holiday party — or any nontraditional networking event for that matter — you don’t treat it like a business mixer. Show finesse. Yes, it is a great networking opportunity, but if you overtly sell, you may turn people off. After all, it is a holiday.

courtesy:http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220784

Even in a bad economy, on truth about marketing stands: you have to spend more to make more.

A few days ago, I spoke at a luncheon with approximately 500 local business leaders. I began with these words: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is you will have fewer competitors next year because many of your competitors will be out of business. The bad news is you might be one of those out of business.” I then showed them my local newspaper, pointing to the headline “Businesses Are Struggling.” I opened the newspaper and said, “I can tell you who will be in business.” I pointed to a full-page ad for a local appliance store. “I’ll bet money that this business will be here next year. Why? Because this business is advertising more aggressively than its competition.”

In previous issues of Entrepreneur, I’ve written about the importance of advertising and promotion. I’ve shared my rich dad’s lesson that when business drops off, many entrepreneurs listen to their accountant’s advice and cut back on advertising and promotion. That’s the worst thing you can do. When times get tough, your job is to promote more, not less. Promotion is a six-week cycle. That means if I promote for, say, four weeks, business remains strong. Then, just as suddenly, business drops off, because six weeks earlier, the entrepreneur had stopped promoting.

My Rich Dad’s lesson was to never stop promoting: Promote whether the economy is strong or weak; promote even when you may not have the money. If you have no money, stand on a street corner at lunchtime with a sign hanging around your neck promoting your product or service. Not only will you meet new customers, but you might also save money on lunch, lose some weight and get a suntan. Obviously, it takes more than just promoting to do well. To be successful, a business also requires strong fundamentals and a desirable product or service. During tough economic times, though, even some good business fail; some businesses shrink and others grown. When a business closes, its customers migrate to the business that fights hard and stays open. Businesses that promote while others cut their ad budgets have a better chance of getting bigger… even if the economy is shrinking.

Copyright is owned by Entrepreneur Media SA and/or Entrepreneur Media Inc. All rights reserved

By Susan Ward, About.com Guide

Business cards are a valuable promotion tool. No business person could live without the convenience of having a business card to hand to prospective clients or customers. Handing out a business card is so much easier than writing out all your contact information for a person you’ve just met.

But most business cards only do half the marketing job. Think about what you do with the business cards people give you. If you’re like me, they go into a pile in a drawer. If you’re more organized, maybe they go into a card file. In either case, the business cards just sit there, out of view, and probably out of mind. What a waste!

Why not turn your business card into a marketing vehicle by making your business card visible? Instead of the traditional business card, get your contact information printed on something that people might leave in plain sight; something that will remind them of you and your services or products whenever they look at it.

You can get information printed on just about anything now. What about using something like fridge magnets instead of the standard business card? What do people do with fridge magnets? Put them on their refrigerator in their kitchen – a place the family frequents, where they’ll see your contact information (and marketing message) countless times a day!

Message pads, coasters, mouse pads – your choice of business card marketing vehicle is limited only by your imagination. My cat’s veterinarian hands out palm-sized calendars with magnetic backing as business cards, something that most people are guaranteed to hang up in plain view.

Remember, most business cards just sit in a drawer, doing nothing until or unless someone bothers to dig them out. And if there’s nothing to remind them of you, why would they bother to dig out your business card? Making it easy for people to remember (and call) you by using a more unique ‘handout’ item as a business card is a smart investment.

By Susan Ward, About.com Guide
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/qt/bizcardmarket.htm

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BY MIKAL E. BELICOVE | July 26, 2011

Facebook and Twitter have lulled many businesses into thinking that blogging and posting content on social venues are the only means of stimulating dialogue on the web. But many businesses have substantial amounts of content on static web pages–from product and service descriptions to “about the staff” pages and photographs–that can be turned into customer talking points. The fix? Simply comment- or share-enable the pages.

Here are four good reasons you should consider opening your website content to comments:

• As users post comments, they generate fresh content for you–and that can help boost your ranking on search engines.
• Comments give you a better understanding of your customers and site visitors. They can also inspire new or improved products and services.
• Make it easy for users to recommend your site via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and your site traffic could get a boost.
• People like to feel that their opinion matters and that your business listens. They also like to see what others are saying about your business and what it offers. And, of course, they like to see what comments their comments attract, which makes your site open to more repeat visits.

Comment-enabling static web content has never been easier, thanks to a number of powerful commenting tools:

Facebook’s Comment Box plug-in for websites makes it possible for people to post the comments they make on your website to their friends’ news feeds on Facebook; the discussion thread remains synced across Facebook and your site.

Disqus is a real-time comment system that notifies commenters when they receive a response and lets them carry on the conversation via e-mail or smartphone. Disqus is fully integrated with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even Flickr, allowing commenters to continue the discussion across platforms.

IntenseDebate, another real-time commenting platform, notifies commenters when they receive a response and lets them carry on the conversation via e-mail. It also gives commenters the option to send a simultaneous tweet when posting a comment and share their comments with their Facebook friends.

All three tools are free and relatively easy for a skilled webmaster to install and configure. Each can be configured to notify key company personnel the instant someone posts a comment, so you can moderate and contribute to discussions in rapid fashion. In fact, you can even configure each one to hold comments for approval, thus avoiding potentially nasty dialogue from ever making it onto your site.

A version of this article was originally published in the August 2011 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Get People Talking.

Credits: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220009

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First off let me say that a logo is not a brand but the face of the brand. To understand what a brand is you could switch it with the word reputation.

Every business has a brand whether they want one or not. In branding perception is reality. For instance: if you were to go into your closest city and asked consumers what they thought of the daily paper, what ever they said would essentially be that paper’s brand. If it was negative then the daily’s management would have to determine if they were going to fix it and change the conversation or allow it to stand and risk having the competition define your brand for you – never a good thing.

A brand is the relationship a company has with its stakeholders (Stakeholders being customers, suppliers and employees). The better the relationship the stronger the loyalty. This loyalty to brand can result in removing the company from commodity hell. (This is when a purchase is determined solely on price) If a brand is powerful (Apple for example) the company can command a higher price. People react favorably to strong brands because they live up to their brand promise and in many cases over deliver. People who love brands become advocates for them. They wear logoed apparel, they tell all their peers how great they are – they become sales people for the brand.

read more at http://www.smallbusinessbranding.com/2919/why-logos-branding-are-so-important/

From thorough contact information to customer testimonials, here are the essentials that every small business website should have for it to effectively help you do business.

1. A clear description of who you are
Someone who stumbles upon your website shouldn’t have to do investigative work to figure out what, exactly, it is that you do. That means clearly stating your name and summing up your products or services right on the homepage, says John Zhuang, of Web-design and SEO-optimization firm Winning Interactive.

“Tell people this is the right website that they have been searching for,” he says. “[A clear description] will attract the visitor’s attention immediately within 2-3 seconds, and encourage them to stay on your website longer.”

2. A simple, sensible Web address
Don’t make things complicated.

“Your domain name is like your brand. It should be easy for a user to type it into a Web browser or an e-mail address,” says Ron Wright, the founder of business Web design and online marketing firm Accentix.

He adds: “I always recommend the .com domain as users are conditioned to type that extension when they enter a Web address. For non-profits or organizations, I usually recommend using a .org domain for branding purposes, but also recommend having a .com version of the domain in case a user accidentally types the .com address.”

Wright also suggests avoiding dashes (which can cause SEO headaches) and numbers (which can cause confusion for customers).

3. An easily-navigated site map
Clear links to the most important pages, and a site map, are crucial for guiding visitors to the information they’re looking for.

“Be sure your navigation is clearly laid out. I always recommend using dropdowns in the navigation menu so the visitor can see the content under every heading from virtually any page. You want to make it very easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for, or what you want them to know,” Wright suggests.

4. Easy-to-find contact information
You wouldn’t want to lose a customer to a competitor just because you made it difficult for them to get in touch with you.

“Not every online visitor has the patience to click through every page on your website to find the contact information,” says Zhuang.

“The best place for the contact information is the top left or top right corner of the home page,” he recommends. “It is also a good practice to include contact information in every page of the website in the footer or side bar or even in top right corner, which helps the visitors to find it more easily.”

You should also be sure to include several ways for them to contact you — phone, e-mail, and a standard contact form, are all good options. Forbes also suggests including your address, and even a link to your location in Google maps.

“One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is to force only one way to reach them,” says Wright. “The point is to make it very easy for users to communicate with you on their terms.”

5. Customer testimonials
Honest words from others help make your products or services more tangible to customers who are visiting you online.

“They help your potential customers to build trust in you, especially if you are new,” Zhuang says. “[And they] help shoppers to confirm whether the product [or] services meet their needs.”

“People love to hear stories from real people,” he adds. “They help people [find out] other things you haven’t said [on] your website.”

6. An obvious call to action
“Tell the online visitors literally what you want them to do with clear tones of commend,” says Zhuang. “For instance, you may want them to call you now for free quote, or sign up to your exclusively online coupons, or add products to the online shopping cart, etc.”

And, he adds, call attention to your suggestion — by using special buttons or highlighting the text, for example.

7. Know the basics of SEO
Your website won’t do you as much good if no one can stumble upon it. Become familiar with the SEO basics to make it more accessible by search engine.

“You don’t need to employ mysterious, ninja, black hat SEO types to rank well on the search engines. Simply make sure your website is coded correctly,” Wright says.

That means using the correct keywords throughout your text, putting in plenty of links, naming your page titles and URLs correctly, and employing the magic of images and videos.

8. Fresh, quality content
For many businesses, your website is your first impression on a customer. You want to give them what they’re looking for, and perhaps even give them a reason to keep coming back.

Wright says, “The user is looking for something. Make sure you give it to them…. [and be] sure your content is original, well written and valuable.”

Fresh content is a goldmine for SEO, as well. You can keep your content from getting stale (and give your company some personality, too) by incorporating a regularly-updated blog or connecting in your social media feeds.

9. A secure hosting platform
Having your online information hijacked is a nightmare, and, should it happen to your business, it could cost you customers.

“It is imperative that you have a secure, trustworthy hosting company to keep the bad guys out and your content up and running,” says Wright. “It is also very important to keep your content management system updated in order to stay one step ahead of the hackers.”

10. A design and style that’s friendly to online readers
As Forbes puts it, “Web surfers have the attention spans of drunken gnats.”

Zhuang describes it in more detail: “Online visitors often scan through a Web page to sample the content first when they open a new Web page. If they feel like they are on the right page, they will slow down to read the full story. To enhance user’s experience on your small business website, you need to organize the content for scanning.”

He recommends three style points for online writing to keep in mind:

• Break things down into short paragraphs, with headers if necessary
• Use bullet points
• Highlight important words or phrases.

Wright adds, “In the end, simplicity and basic colors are the best bet. Again, the content is the focus, not dancing clowns at the top of the page.”

sources: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217499