Threefold Design

Are you sending customers on their way with nothing except the merchandise they ordered? And, what about products you ship to your customers? Do they arrive with the merchandise, a receipt, maybe a packing slip — and nothing else?

If so, you’re losing sales.

That’s because the easiest sales to make are sales to satisfied customers. To boost your profits at minimal cost, tuck an ad for your products into the package before you hand over (or ship) the merchandise to the customer. If you have an ecommerce site, be sure the insert reminds the customer that they can buy online and that it includes the URL. Your phone number and physical address should also be on the insert.

Source: Janet Attard, Business Know-How

Reading what Paul had to say today was an interesting challenge to me as I look to share the gospel with others, and I think it will be a challenge to churches as well.

“What then is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.” (1 Corinthians 9:18 NASB)

Free. There’s a marketing term that every corporation wishes they could use more often. As you set up programming, think about how to market and consider the best way to reach out, remember that our ultimate reward is to present the gospel without charge. There’s no way to market like letting people know the gospel is free.

By: Apryl Duncan

Cross promoting your company is a highly-effective way to promote your business no matter what your advertising budget.

Take a look at recent Swiffer commercials that feature clips from Cinderella. Disney has paid $150 million to help promote the Cinderella Special Edition DVD release. Swiffer commercials show a mom struggling to clean her floor while her daughter watches Cinderella on TV. From the TV comes a solution to the mom’s cleaning problem and with some Cinderalla-like magic, the mom can now clean her floor with a Swiffer product.

You can do this too without the $150 million budget. Read more.. »

The inability to fill orders is one of the leading problems that small businesses face when they try to grow. Either they can’t raise money fast enough to cover all the costs of producing and distributing the products, they can’t find enough employees to produce the work, or they can’t do the work at all.

To minimize the problem, find out what will be involved in scaling up your production before you line up sales representatives or rent space at a trade show. Find out what quantities you’d need to purchase to get better wholesale prices, and what you’d need to do and what it would cost to secure the financing if you have to ramp up in a hurry. Check with employment agencies and talk to others in local business organizations to find out how much difficulty you are likely to have finding employees in the skill and salary range you will need.

A counselor at a local SCORE or Small Business Development Center should be able to help you work up the numbers and alert you to potential funding sources that may be available.

Remember, if you sign a contract to do a job or deliver a product by a certain date, you are legally bound to live up to the terms of that contract. If you don’t you could be sued and either asked to pay the cost of having someone else complete the job, or sued for damages such as lost income due to your negligence. Depending on how your business is operated, you could lose not only your business, but your home and any other assets. So, be sure you really can do what you say before you sign that contract.

Source: Janet Attard, Business Know-How

Your business name can help prospects remember you and what you sell, or it can leave them clueless. A name like “PlumberToTheRescue” will pretty much let anyone who hears about you or has one of your business cards know exactly what you do. But if your name is “Bob Smith & Associates,” you could be anything from an accountant to a driveway resurfacing company.

If you’re just starting out, consider choosing a business name that describes your business in some way. Don’t get too specific – you don’t want to call your photography business “Darling Young Portraits” if you also plan to solicit business as a business photographer. But do try to get some phrase in your business name that will help prospects remember you and think your business is the best one to call.

If you’re already using a nondescript business name  — say “Jones & Company, Inc.” — there’s nothing to stop you from renaming your business (if the current business name isn’t widely known) or creating a unique name for the primary product or service you sell and promoting that unique name. Attard Communications, Inc., for instance, does business under the name BusinessKnowHow.com so that business owners will immediately know it’s a business website.

Source: Janet Attard, Business Know-How

How can you find customers for your new business or new customers for your existing business? One of the easiest ways is to find out who your competitors sell to and then market your business to the same or similar customers.

Finding out who your competitors’ customers are is often quite simple. If you sell to businesses, you’ll find that some competitors will list some of their biggest customers on their website, in press releases, or in promotional literature you can pick up at trade shows. If you find the names of those customers, there’s nothing to stop you from promoting your business to those same customers or customers in similar lines of business.

Or, if you sell to consumers, you can tell on a broader level who their customers are by where they repeatedly run ads. If the competitor has had an ad in the same local paper or same magazine for more than 6 months, then there’s a good chance their ad is working. If you place a similar ad in the same publication, it ought to work for you, too.

Source: Janet Attard, Business Know-How

Ask most service providers how they get business, and the answer is “referrals” or “word of mouth.” Carter Prescott, head of New York-based Carter Communications, which provides high-level writing and speaking services forFortune 500 clients, doesn’t even have a listed phone number. “I’ve never needed one,” she says. “It’s better to have people call you on their own, rather than soliciting calls anyway. You get a better client that way.”

True, but you still have to work to generate referrals. Even your most loyal customers aren’t likely to think about generating business for you — they’ve got their own fish to fry. So try these surefire methods to build your word-of-mouth business: Read more.. »

When you are selling big-ticket products or services, there’s a lot more at stake than just the final dollar amount of the contract. On the customer’s side, your product or service will in some way affect their business and profitability. And because of that, the decision to buy your product will ultimately reflect on and perhaps have an effect on the career and reputation of the people who make the buying decision.

On your side, there are considerations such as the time and cost of getting the sale, and the effect the terms of the deal will have on your business operations, profitability and, ultimately, reputation.

With so much at stake, you need to organize and assess your sales efforts. Here are 10 steps to follow: Read more.. »

By: churchrelevance.com

Facebook has launched a new feature called “Facebook Pages” that allows organizations to better promote themselves to Facebook users. It is similar to creating a Group, but with significant improvements. Facebook Pages allow you to: Read more.. »

What’s a customer worth to your business?

Many small businesses can’t answer that question. Can you?

If you sell just one product, the price of that one product is $20 and customers never come back to buy the product after their initial purchase, the value of each customer is $20. If you sell multiple products or your customers make repeat purchases, the value of your typical customer is going to be the total value of their purchase over the number of weeks or years they buy from you. Read more.. »