By Lee CusanoÂ
If you are in the residential service industry (i.e. painting business, carpet cleaning, lawn care, etc.) how do you calculate just how much money a single customer is worth? It’s simple once you take the following facts into consideration:1.) For one thing your local customers represent immediate cash flow. Depending on your type of business, whether it’s carpet cleaning, painting, window washing, etc. your customers are a way to make instant needed cash. You need to put food on your table and pay bills paid just like everyone else and there is nothing like immediate income to do it.
2.) Add-ons - one thing nice that adds to your immediate income is when customers add on extra work during a job. For example: If you are a house painter and you are painting their living room, they may ask you to paint one or more of their kids bedrooms. This adds a nice chunk of cash to your immediate profits.
3.) Customers are a testimony of your good work. Sometimes a potential customer will ask you for references. Having plenty of previous satisfied customers on hand to use as a reference works well. I even had one potential customer tell me “I thought they were your mom and dad the way they went on and on about you. They had a lot of nice things to say about you and your service!”. Wow! Is that a reference or what?!
4.) Your customers can give you lots of great referrals! Without intending to brag, I have made thousands of dollars off of single customers many times over the years. This happens simply from them referring me to their inner circle of family and friends. Not every customers will do this but with the ones that do, I can trace 2nd, third, and even as deep as 6 and 7 generations or levels of new business all pointing back to one single customer referring me to their friends and family for painting.
5.) And the fifth way to calculate a customer’s worth is they may call you back many times to service them again. Many times I start out doing a job for a customer and then they call me back for a series of other jobs. I have even had customers give me inside work to do at my discretion to fill in for rain days painting somewhere else! (How did they know?)
This is the proper way to know how much money a single customer is worth to you. Take all that into consideration and I guess each customer can be worth thousands and thousands of dollars to you over the years in your own local service business!
I know this from experience… I’m thinking about one customer in particular that during a 10 year span of painting for them, have called me back several times. This same customer has also given me some excellent referrals. I can trace new business 5 and 6 levels deep and probably deeper from just this one painting customer alone.
That’s the exciting thing about owning your own local business. You get to meet a lot of fine interesting people. These are really great folks that have the resources to hire you with. And they have lots of friends who have lots of money to hire you with too! (I call that job security.)
The bottom line is this, if you treat each customer as if they were worth a million dollars to you and consider no job as being too small, they can eventually lead you to some great opportunities to expand your customer base.
About the Author
Lee Cusano has owned and operated his own successful painting business for over 16 years. He has also helped many others to start their own painting business with his “Paint Like a Pro Estimating and Advertising CD-ROM”. Lee also offers a free report titled “How To Gain a High Success Rate For Getting Painting Jobs”. To get it go to http://www.Painting-Business.com
Posted by leaddog50 as Uncategorized at 3:39 PM CST
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This article explains value-added selling, an important business concept.Â
By Dave Kahle“Value-added.” That word is used so much it has become a cliche in business circles. There may not be a business in the world that doesn’t claim to be a “value-added” seller.The problem is that once a word or phrase becomes a cliche, it often loses it’s original meaning. This is true with “value-added.” What exactly does that mean?
Ask six business principles what it means when they say that they are a “value-added” seller, and you’ll likely hear six different explanations. One claims that they fulfill orders quickly, and that short waiting period is “of value” to their customers. Others claim that their experienced people bring value to their customers. Their customers do business with them because of the quality of their people. Others claim some unique technical expertise, others their sophisticated IT systems, some the breath of their inventory, still others reflect on the brand name products they handle.
I’m always a bit skeptical of this. Almost every business I work with claims to have better people, better service, and more technical expertise than all their competitors. What is puzzling to me is that their competitors say the same thing. Someone has an inaccurate perception.
The definitions grow even more obtuse when you ask salespeople what they mean by “value added.” Some will claim that their customers demand a regular visit by the salesperson. Their routine presence, therefore, is valuable to the customer. Others, like their bosses, claim expertise as valuable. Many point to the long term relationship as the factor that brings the most value to the customer. On and on it goes.
The truth that we often overlook is this: Value is defined by the customer, not the supplier. It doesn’t matter what you think your value is, it only matters what your customer believes it to be. And customers don’t always think alike, so that the operating definition of value-added varies from customer to customer.
As our economy has grown more complex and competitive, the demands of the customer and their subsequent definitions of value have grown more varied. What was more or less universally valued a few years ago, is not anymore. For example, local inventory may have been universally valued in the 1990s, but today some customers would rather buy direct and absorb a longer shipping time. Experienced people may have been valuable to everyone a few years ago, but some customers today would rather gather their information off the internet and pay lower prices. Technical expertise may have been universally valuable a few years ago, but some customers today would rather reduce their purchasing costs through an integrated supply contract administered by the home office 500 miles away.
It’s not that some of the things you have built into your business as value-added are no longer important, it is that some of then are no longer viewed, by significant numbers of your customers, as worth paying more for. They may be necessary, but they are not sufficient.
If you are going to be a true value-added seller in the 21st century marketplace, you must be flexible and capable enough to offer different things to different customers, responding to the individual customer’s definition of what is valuable to him or her.
That means that you must have some way of ascertaining what is valuable to each of your customers, and then some processes in place that allows you to package, present and implement those aspects of your offer that appeal to the customer’s individual definition.
The primary means of doing that is a highly trained sales force that is adept at the strategies and tactics that result in a deeper and broader understanding of what the customer really wants, what the customer really values, and what the customer will really pay for.
Unfortunately, much of the business world of is populated with technically-oriented salespeople who view their job as providing technical solutions to technical problems. While that certainly is a significant part of the job, and an excellent foundation for value-added selling, it is not sufficient. Others see themselves as face-to-face customer service people, visiting the customers on a regular, route basis in order to pick up orders and take care of details. Still others have evolved into comfort zones: working with the same customers, on the same product lines, in the same ways.
More and more, value is determined by deeper and broader issues than just those addressed by these limited perspectives. How the solution fits into the customer’s business systems, the philosophy of the customer relative to its vendors, the strategic plans of the customer, the potential integration of customer/vendor IT systems, etc. - all these and more are just as likely to be the issues that the customer values.
If salespeople are going to adequately uncover these deeper issues, they’ll need to excel at certain sales behaviors that go above and beyond just the ability to solve a technical problem, or show up regularly.
What must they excel at?
Specifically, value-added salespeople will need to enhance their ability to create positive business relationships with anyone and everyone. They’ll need to relate to a variety of positions and job titles, like CEO, CFO, Vice President, as well as production supervisor or engineer Additionally, they’ll need to expand their abilities to deal positively with a wide variety of personality styles. The sales person who remains in the comfort zone of production supervisors, purchasing agents and maintenance supervisors will severely limit his/her value.
Not only will effective salespeople need to create positive business relationships with everyone, they also will need to fine tune their skills in asking questions, listening constructively and ferreting out the deeper needs of those customers.
Those salespeople who can understand what each customer considers to be valuable to them, and then can bring creative solutions to those customers, will be the valuable value-added sellers.
What is encouraging about this is that each of these value-added selling skills is a learnable behavior. No one is born with the ability to ask penetrating questions, create positive relationships, listen constructively, or develop creative proposal and solutions.
These behaviors of the most effective value-added salespeople can each be learned. Once a minimum level of expertise is attained, sales people can continually improve on these behaviors of the rest of their selling career.
This is a great opportunity for the business who is intent on maintaining and expanding their position as a value-added seller. Those who develop systems that encourage the key sales behaviors, who train their sales people in those behaviors, and who stimulate them to continuously improve their implementation will be those who rise to the top as value-added sellers.
About the author:
About Dave Kahle, The Growth Coach(r):
Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. His latest book for sales managers is Transforming Your Sales Force for the 21st Century (http://www.davekahle.com/vstransforming.htm ). You can also sign up for his sales ezine called “Thinking About Sales” at http://www.davekahle.com/vsmailinglist.htm. You can reach Dave personally at 800-331-1287 or by emailing him at mailto:info@davekahle.com
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Posted by leaddog50 as Uncategorized at 10:27 PM CST
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Of course you’re interested in increasing your profits. Here are some great tips.Â
By Dan Brown1. Use a “P.S.” at the end of your ad copy. This
is were you either want to repeat a strong benefit
or use a strong close like a free bonus.2. Publish a free ebook and give it away from your
web site or in your e-zine. This will increase your
traffic, sales and e-zine subscribers.
3. Create multiple streams of income with your web
site. You could sell your own products, join affiliate
programs, sell advertising space, etc.
4. Give your visitors compliments in your ad copy.
This can earn their trust and put them in a good
mood, in return they will be easier to sell too.
5. Create new products or services only if there is
a strong need for them. You won’t have anyone to
sell them to if you don’t have a market.
6. Sell your backend products to your customers
right after they order. Take them to a “Thank You”
web page that includes other products you sell.
7. Sell a few products on your web site instead of
selling a large amount of products. To many choices
can overwhelm your visitors and they won’t buy.
8. Include content and free stuff on your web site
that promote the products you’re selling. If they
don’t read your ads, they may read your offerings.
9. Remind your visitors that you’re human not just
a web site. You could publish information on your
family life, a picture of yourself , a profile, etc.
10. Provide a “Contact Page” on your web site.
Give your visitors as many options to contact you
as possible. This’ll add credibility to your business
About the author:
Author Dan Brown has been active in internet marketing for the past 4 years. Dan currently is working with the Zabang search engine introducing their new affiliate program which is due out Sept, 2005. http://www.zabangaffiliate.com/
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Posted by leaddog50 as Uncategorized at 8:54 PM CDT
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Here’s an important topic–how to reduce your business costs. Read the great tips.Â
By Dan Brown1. Barter
If you have a business you should be bartering goods
and services with other businesses. You should try to
trade for something before you buy it. Barter deals
usually require little or no money.2. Network
Try networking your business with other businesses.
You could trade leads or mailing lists. This will cut
down on your marketing and advertising costs. You
may also try bartering goods and services with them.
3. Wholesale/Bulk
Buy your business supplies in bulk quantities.
You could get a membership at a wholesale warehouse
or buy them through a mail order wholesaler. Buy
the supplies you are always running out of.
4. Free Stuff
You should try visiting the thousands of freebie sites
on the internet before buying your business supplies.
You can find free software, graphics, backgrounds,
online business services etc.
5. Borrow/Rent
Have you ever purchased business equipment you
only needed for a small period of time? You could
have just borrowed the equipment from someone
else or rented the equipment from a “rent-all” store.
6. Online/Offline Auctions
You can find lower prices on business supplies and
equipment at online and offline auctions. I’m not
saying all the time, but before you go pay retail for
these items try bidding on them first.
7. Plan Ahead
Make a list of business supplies or equipment you’ll
need in the future. Keep an eye out for stores that
have big sales. Purchase the supplies when they go
on sale before you need them.
8. Used Stuff
If your business equipment and supplies don’t need
to be new, buy them used. You can find used items
at yard and garage sales, used stores, used stuff
for sale message boards and newsgroups etc.
9. Negotiate
You should always try negotiate a lower price for
any business equipment or supplies. It doesn’t hurt
to try. Pretend you are talking to a salesman at a car
lot.
10. Search
You can always be searching for new suppliers for
your business supplies and equipment. Look for
suppliers with lower prices and better quality. Don’t
just be satisfied with a few.
About the author:
Author Dan Brown has been active in internet marketing for the past 4 years. Dan currently is working with the Zabang search engine introducing their new affiliate program which is due out Sept, 2005. http://www.zabangaffiliate.com/
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Posted by leaddog50 as Uncategorized at 11:19 AM CDT
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This article gives good advice about  how to avoid some business traps and run a great business.
By Stephanie Frank
You’re a smart, hardworking entrepreneur, and you’re moving fast. You are highly educated in your field and your business is growing and getting busier each day. But somehow, you find yourself stuck. You’re doing more tasks that take you away from your core business, you are working more and earning less. You need help. Wouldn’t it be great if there was someone, anyone out there who could help you take away some of the daily tasks so you could focus on the things you really love?
Maybe you’ve looked, tried to work with or even hired people to help you manage your business. But somehow, every time, things just didn’t go right, and there you were, left again with the mounds of paperwork, details and projects to manage. Alone.
“No problem,” you tell yourself. “I can do it faster myself anyway.”
In that one statement, you just fell into the biggest trap of your entrepreneurial career.
Growing and leading your business is by far the biggest challenge a business owner faces. After all, you are highly specialized in your field - which is not business management. Unfortunately for most business owners, when a new employee or contractor comes into the business, one of two things usually happens.
1. The business owner and new hire spend hours, days, weeks and sometimes months working side by side, with the business owner explaining all of the intricacies of the job. When the employee or contractor gets good at the job, the business owner begins to panic, wondering if the person will stay. When the person leaves the company, the process repeats. Frustration, fear and doubt plague the business owner.
2. The new person is hired and told briefly what is expected of him/her. The big picture is provided and the person is left up to his or her own judgment as to how the job gets done. The person does the job in a different manner than the owner and is reprimanded for doing things a new way. The employee feels disempowered, afraid, and leaves. Frustration, fear and doubt plague the business owner once again. .
It doesn’t have to be that way.
You can have the freedom, focus and results you want in business. Solving this problem is simple. You probably weren’t trained in school as a business manager, so you must first understand that business operations management is a required skill for a success in business. Most people make it too hard, by hoping for a single person to show up on their doorstep, smart, focused, creative and able to take away the tasks that lay before them with hardly a second thought. I’m about to burst your bubble, because that person is probably already in business for themselves. It’s up to you to create the environment where other people can be empowered to assist you. Here are four simple steps to get you started on the road to turn-key success.
1. Create total focus.
Get out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Title the page Total Focus. On the left side, write down all of the tasks you do in a week, from answering the phone to shipping to providing service and creating new products. On the right side, write down the three things you love doing. Compare the lists.
2. Group tasks for easy delegation.
Next to each task, label it with one of the three major business areas:
- Administrative (office paperwork)
- Sales/Marketing (attracting customers or making the sale)
- Production (producing/shipping and delivery of products or services)
3. Start Documenting.
For each task, write down the steps to completion. You might start with “Here’s How We _____________” to prompt you. Use whatever method is simplest for you - a screenshot, written or typed steps, diagrams - just get it down on paper and put it in a binder called Procedure Manual.
4. Get Help.
Begin looking for people to work on tasks that are not in your “love to do” column. Start small. The right person works only a few hours per week on the things that take you days.
There is no magic person who can do all business tasks (except you, of course!). With your Procedure Manual in hand, you can delegate properly, relax and enjoy building your business, the simple way.
About the author:
Stephanie Frank is an internationally known author and speaker. Take the free quiz “Do You Have What It Takes To Be The Next Accidental Millionaire?” and receive $1,574 of business building tools and resources at http://www.AccidentalMillionaire.com
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Posted by leaddog50 as Uncategorized at 6:35 PM CDT
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