I admit it. I'm addicted. I first noticed how bad my addiction was in Missouri, two weeks ago. Then, last night… the urge was so strong, the guilt so painful that I realized I might need some good old-fashioned withdrawal therapy…

I know I'm as guilty as most (if not more). I carry my Blackberry (and sometimes my laptop with my Blackberry) everywhere. I was even one of those "talking-heads" with the "borg-looking" headset (until my dog ate it).  I think he was trying to tell me something. Anyway, that should have been my first clue. The second clue should have been the freeing moment I felt when I did not have to strap "that" to my ear every morning…

Last night though was the defining moment. I left "it" at home while I went to dinner with my kids and their friends. I didn’t intend to leave it at home… it just happened in my rush to get out the door on time.

The instant I got home I picked up the "addiction," and noticed 5 missed calls and a half-dozen emails… it surprised me the "guilt" I felt—I had been out of touch, (and I'm old enough to remember life before voicemail)…

What did we do before anyone could find us at anytime?

Have you noticed that you can't even walk down the street these days without hearing people "talking to themselves"? It seems we are more connected than ever—cell phones, laptops, and wireless connections everywhere… but are we really any closer to each other?

The fun and pure joy of the good food and good conversation with family and friends last night convinced me it’s time to leave "it" at the office (or at least on occasion—I know, I’m not ready for "cold-turkey" withdrawal yet).

Remember when blackberries were just a delicious summer-time treat. Imagine the real connections we might make over a warm bowl of blackberry cobbler and ice cream…

Enjoy the last few days of summer with that which matters most—family and friends and we will get down to more business-stuff later…

Have a great day in whatever your adventure,

To success! To Life

Sharon

p.s. I've survived my withdrawal so far, it's good to be out of touch on occasion. I just finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. It's a fast read, a little superficial, but good. I had to laugh though in Chapter 7, he recommends being selectively out of touch. Some of what he recommends I had just started:

1. I've turned off the "Pavlov bell" on my email (I only check it 3 times a day now and working my way down to one time.)

2. I am more willing to let my calls go to voice mail. I find I get so much more done without the distractions of stopping and starting.

p.p.s. I have resisted the iPhone, being a life-long Mac'er I just know that would overtake me instantly—just playing with them at the Apple store an hour vanished like magic…pretty cool though.

Direct mail is in a revival these days. Even Microsoft recently sent out a direct mail campaign to market adCenter, their online paid ad service. Imagine that, direct mail ads to advertise an online ad service!

Direct mail can be an effective way to target select markets, if done correctly.

How do you make your mail stand out from the rest? 

• Start with a clear message and an easy-to-understand call to action.
  What you want them to do?
• Use only graphics that help tell your story.
• Don’t pack everything in your piece, give them a reason to contact you.
• Be generous with white space. It is important to allow the reader’s eye to rest.

Type and fonts

• Use reverse type sparingly. Not at all, if your target audience is over 55.
• Speaking of over 55, use 14 point or larger type if your target is older.
• Do not put any small type on a darker color background.
• Limit the number of font families, preferably only two, e.g., Arial font for the headlines and Times font for the body copy.
• Use bold and italics carefully. They can be great to highlight important information, but if everything is bold or italic then nothing is important.
• Stick to easy to read fonts. Fancy fonts can be hard to read.
• Type on funny angles is not fun, it’s just hard to read. Don’t make them think beyond your call to action.
• Be careful using justified type (left and right margins are even). Justified type can create uneven spacing causing “rivers of white” throughout the type.

Paper and Ink

• Choose duotones/tritones colors carefully. People look funny in purple… use four-color printing or black printing if you use photos.
• Choose ink and paper carefully. Match them to your audience. Astro-bright papers may be great for a garage sale, but may not be right if your target markets are corporate professionals.
• Avoid metallic inks or foils for copy.  The glare from the inks makes it unreadable and impossible to fax or scan.

Most important:

Remember to put your contact information in several easy-to-spot places, that includes your web address, phone number and email.

With just a little planning you can create an effective printed piece for your business that can become a valuable part of your marketing puzzle.

Clicked the red ruby shoes to bring you this week’s Best Impressions–I’m somewhere over the rainbow–Oz perhaps, as I’m writing today’s newsletter from a cave somewhere outside of Kansas City.

I’m taking computer training on developing online learning courses at the International Academy of Science. I know that still doesn’t explain why I’m writing in a cave, well, the Academy is located in an old limestone quarry – underground, yes underground (if it looks like a cave and feels like a cave, it must be a cave….) Maybe,  I’ve seen to many spy movies… but it sure feels odd working on computers deep in a cave. Just waiting for James Bond to wander by…

I’ll write more next week on what I’m learning, but wanted to follow-up on last week. Some of you asked me; "How do you determine what they want…"  when I mentioned that excellent businesses go one step beyond (+ one) to exceed customer’s expectations.

How do I know they do or don’t desire red ruby shoes?

Be the man behind the curtain (couldn’t resist the bad segue) and do some simple market research. Don’t rely on "gut feeling" or "intuition" to make a decision as important as this-– remember the old saying that you can’t see the forest for the trees…you might be surprised what your customers value. 

Starbucks really doesn’t just sell coffee; they “sell” community and community activism.

Finding out what your customers’ desire doesn’t have to be expensive market research–just ask your 5 best customers what they prefer about your company over competitors.

Consider asking your most difficult customers the same questions. Remember, you are trying to find what "quality service" really means and perhaps gain some new ideas–you may find the difficult customers have the most valuable information.

Tips on developing your Customer Survey

1. First, tell them how much you value their opinion and time, remember be brief.
2. Design your questions to be open ended, not yes or no type questions. Asking open-ended questions is a valuable skill to develop (if followed up by listening).

   Examples of open-ended questions:

   — What prompted your company to use us?

   — What are your requirements for this product?

   — What are your expectations for this product?

3. Ask only one question at a time. For example, "What are your expectations and requirements for this product?" is two questions.
4. Do not seek personal information. This survey is not meant to add to your “list of leads.” It is meant as valuable market research information.

Use this research to make a list of existing service ideas that customer’s value and also a list of new ideas you can implement. That in a nutshell is a part of “Results Oriented Business Success.”

Here’s a easy-to-use formula for a successful sale.

Decide what you need / want.

+ [Determine what your customer wants + one]

Results: Win/Win sales situation

It may appear simple on the surface but sometimes just deciding…

Decide what you want

This can be a stumbling block for some people, but in order to get what you want or need from a sale you must first decide what you want. As you decide what you want, make sure it is measurable. Know your bottom-line of what you want–your bottom-line can even include whom you are willing to work with or for.

Specifically, what do you want and when do you want it by?

Desired outcome + [Where + When + How Much] = What you want

What you want + How = Objective

Now that you know what you want, determine what your customer wants.

Determine what your customer wants + one

The first step in delivering a successful sales experience is to find out what features your customers value, what benefits they desire, and what their underlying needs might be. Then match, or ideally, go one step beyond (+ one) to exceed your customer’s expectations.

Successful businesses appear to spontaneously fill customer needs and offer desired services, but they are actually carefully planned and executed. If you make it a priority to deliver what they need with results-oriented service your success rate will go up dramatically.

Results: You’ll then get more of what you want.

__________

No newsletter can answer all your questions, so if you are serious about getting results and stuck in deciding what you want, drop us an email, we can help. At Impression Engineers, we have trained marketing professionals and coaches with years of experience that can coach you through the process. We strive to provide the highest quality service possible in web design, market planning and research, and communications. We work hard to make ourselves as valuable to our clients as they are to us. Find out today how we can be of service.

Our business is doing well because of our commitment to doing things well. We are not just saying that, we say that we are good at what we do because others have told us so.

Thank you for your powerful insights and your amazing ability to zero in and focus on the core aspects of what needs to be done.

Rich Aydelott – Founder of the Amazing Life Institute
www.AmazingLifeInstitute.org

Have a great day in whatever your adventure,
To Success! To Life!

Sharon

Download your weekly printable Action Quote. Successful Sales.pdf

Last week, I wrote about 4 ways to boost your bottom line and mentioned that increasing your number of customers was the hardest, most expensive and time consuming of the four… I got a couple of emails telling me that “…their business was different, that the ONLY way to grow was new customers….” Well, to be clear, I didn’t say not to get new customers, just know that there is a larger cost involved.

Most businesses still need to follow leads and encourage prospective clients with marketing and outreach programs. But, unless you can close 100% of the time, you are spending more time and effort educating new prospects, than you would if you were selling to current or past customers who already know how great you are.

So let me piss-off those who contacted me with the news that “I just don’t understand” some more. Nobody’s business is that different when it comes to the basics‑‑business is business.

Remember my mentioning author Michael Port’s “Red Velvet Rope Policy” about creating a red velvet rope for only those you do your best work with? Pre-screen prospects before you have to “fire them” to save you both time, money and headaches.

Pre-screen prospects

This week we turned down an excited “client”, yes turned her down. She was excited to have us work on her project. After listening to the long list of other design companies failures, we just knew from the 2 short conversations, that no matter what we did for her she was not going to be happy. It was setting itself up to be a lose/lose proposition.

I don’t need to go into all the details, but we turned her down for two reasons:
1. It became apparent that no one was going to make her happy. She didn’t even know what would make her happy.
2. We didn’t need the migraine. If you have been in business a while you probably already know what types of personalities work best with your business style. If not, it’s time you define your ideal customer’s behaviors and add this list to your target market description.

To begin, ask; "What do I need to consistently do my best work?" Clearly define the behaviors and qualities of your ideal client. Ideal client behavior lists could contain:

• their ethics and work habits
• how their personality blends with yours,
• the types of problems they face,
• their work culture or industry they work in,
• their desires and motivation,
• anything else that would be required to make working together successful.

This list will differ for all of us. It’s not worth taking on a particular type(s) of customers if it is only going to frustrate both you and the client, cost you time and money, and at worst damage your reputation.

Even if you really, really, really need that sale, still turn the prospect down. Once you start giving too much away or making concessions you are only going to lose. Know your bottom line. Know what you will and won’t do before you enter into any sales situation.

Download your weekly printable Action Quote. Best Work.pdf

P.S. A special treat for readers of our blog

Adam has created a special treat for all of you. He took our Sales Summit (mentioned in last week’s issue) and turned it into a nifty little Internet Sales Summit Process Calculator—with a title like that you can tell an engineer developed it—anyway, the Sales Summit Calculator allows you to calculate how many sales you can generate from a given number of prospects.

It is a free conversion calculator to help you estimate your market and sales success. It is developed around the Internet Sales process, but it works for any sales process, just imagine your own sales offer(s) titles.

It’s located at Sales Summit Calculator

If you like it and want to encourage our head engineer to play some more, drop him a note of encouragement. Thanks, hope you enjoy it!