Category Archives: Marketing

Developing your sales force of novices

September 11, 2012 by admin
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Developing your sales force of novices

I wrote this fun blog entry entitled, “How to sell like a pro“. This article looked into the different personality types involved in sales.  I wrote about a very smooth and seasoned pro, and a clumsy novice.  The truth is, that at your typical BPO outsourcing company, you will not be able to afford the James Bond type seasoned professionals, because they will want at least one hundred thousand dollars per year which would translate into an Indian salary of at least a dozen lakhs per year.  The reality is that Call Centers, or BPO operations hire relatively inexpensive staff members, and have to make due with them.  So, in my mind, the strategy here is seeing how much you can develop the people who you can afford. The key here is training the less seasoned salesperson to become a professional at several things.

Smooth and confident

Being smooth and confident is one of the most important skills to have, even if you don’t know the first thing about the product you are selling. Even if you are an idiot, if you are a smooth idiot who is pleasant to talk to and who engages the client in pleasant conversation, you have a significantly higher chance of a score than a timid, nerdy salesperson.

Interaction skills are a must

Anybody can learn product specifications and can learn which attributes to stress during a sales call. But, the harder skill here is interaction.  Knowing how to talk with people, and getting them to feel comfortable interacting is a key here.  High paid salespeople often will just talk to you for at least twenty minutes about “regular stuff” just to win you over and get you to feel comfortable with them.  Novices are in too much of a hurry to make a score, and don’t realize that psychology is 90% of the game and product is only 10%.  Take it easy.

Strategic listening

Women in America always say that they want a guy who listens.  Guess what? So, do prospective clients. I am bombarded with 10 emails per day from idiots who know nothing about me and don’t want to know anything about me, yet want to sell to me. It doesn’t work. They need to briefly introduce themselves, and then listen, and ask questions — by emails, that is unless I delete them which I generally do 99.9% of the time.  But, if by chance, someone cold calls me on the phone and talks to me, they need to find a way to ask me what my needs are.

Marketing and Interaction

August 17, 2012 by admin
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Interaction as a marketing technique

I wrote a few other blogs about sales. My point was that a good salesperson is an expert at interaction, and warms up to people before trying to twist their arm into a sale.  Also, instead of twisting the person’s arm, he gives compelling reasons to the prospect why they should by his product that makes the prospect want to buy the product on their own without any arm twisting.  Seasoned salespeople often make many sales very naturally without any resistance from the buyer.  But, I am in marketing, not sales, and I am not very knowledgeable about mastering the art of sales.   But, there are many parallels between marketing and sales.  Interaction is the main parallel that I want to bring up.

Selling right away is unattractive

My complaint about many Indian companies is that they try to start selling right away when they talk to you, and don’t get to know you first.  This is exactly the problem with most Indian BPO websites.  They say who they are and what they do, but they don’t get to know you.  Internet technology has changed in the last few years.  It used to be about having “a” site.  People would ask, “Do you have a web site?”. Then, the focus was on having a “nice” web site, and then we evolved to needing SEO optimization to show up on search engines which was very expensive and a nightmare.  Since around 2009, a new trend evolved in the internet, and it will be interesting to see how long this trend stays around, or further evolves.  This new trend is social media which includes facebook, blogs, twitter, linked in, myspace, orkut, etc.

Getting to know your users

A good salesperson gets to know you before trying to sell to you. He learns what makes you tick, and what you do, and what you care about BEFORE trying to sell you anything.  A good website does the same as much as possible. But, HOW is this possible?  Social media is the answer.  There are thousands of websites in any category, but the ones that get more attention are the ones that develop a relationship with the user.  Social media allows you to get to know your users, or allows your users to get to know you.

Blogging helps people know you

If you have a blog, particularly an interesting blog, then thousands or millions of people can get to know you, and read about what you have to say.  They will remember your site’s URL much more if they are a regular on your blog.  They will also be much more likely to spend money on your company if they feel that they know you and like you.  Familiarity sells, and there is no getting around that point — so get people to be familiar with your company by blogging.

Facebook is another way

Many businesses have a profile on Facebook. Whether Facebook is great or not is another question, but the fact remains that hundreds of millions of people worldwide are on this medium.  If you have a profile on facebook and populate it with regular interesting discussion topics or pieces of news, you might attract thousands of people who find you by browsing around. This is a great way to attract new clients!  They might see you on Facebook for two years before contacting you for a sale.  Or, if they are on your prospect list, you might call them, and they will be a lot friendlier to you if they saw you even ONCE on Facebook, even if it is a distant memory from the past.

Develop your presence

So, be a good marketeer, and develop a presence — preferably a good presence.  Be seen by millions of people, and get known. Familiarity makes it ten times easier to sell to someone — their resistance to being sold to by you will be at an all time low if they know you, know of you, or think they know you from some distant memory of brushing past your Facebook profile.  Most Indian companies are not using this technology, but if you want to be successful, you need to learn how to use it.

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The mystery of the Chinese bamboo tree & your business!

August 11, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

The mystery of the Chinese bamboo tree and your business

There is a species of bamboo that grows in China.  You have to water it daily for exactly five years, but nothing happens.  If you miss one day of watering, the tree will never grow according to the legend.  However, at the end of exactly five years (according to the story), this tree will grow ten feet in a day.  According to what I have read on the internet, some species of bamboo can grow up to three feet per day, so this myth I am relating to you is not so far off.  But, how does this relate to your business?

Business is weird and strange.  A smart business person will have his company very streamlined and well organized. He will go to great lengths (or heights) to see that his business is as perfected as possible.  But, sometimes you have to put in many years of hard work before you ever see any remarkable growth.  In internet businesses, it is common to put in three years of hard work before ever turning a profit, or even a revenue. You have to have faith and love for your business, otherwise you don’t have a chance.  But, how does this relate to me?

The story of 123notary

I remember, back in the 1900’s (I am sounding old now), I started 123notary.com, a notary directory. I started it to market my own personal notary services.  I never made any money until 2002 when I made a trickle. But, I kept putting my time and money into that site out of passion and desperation.  Finally all of a sudden in March of 2003, we started making 10x the income just like that!  It is exactly like this crazy bamboo tree myth from China.

The outsourcing blog story

But, I just had another situation like this.  Our Outsourcing blog (the one you are reading), is something that gives me great pleasure to write. I have a passion for taking a look at business from as many interesting perspectives as possible. I wish I could see more perspectives so I could write more. I have been working on this blog for two years, but with minimal traffic.  I realized that the tags for the blog articles had been “hijacked” by wordpress.  It is their right since my blog was hosted with them.  So, I had to spend $1100 to my programmers to reconfigure the blog on my server, so that I could have my own tags. It took a few months because someone quit, and the programming company was behind schedule.  But, eventually the reconfiguring task got done, and it was formatted exactly how I wanted it. The next step was to create some links from 123outsource.net to the blog.  About a month after the last of these steps was completed, the blog traffic started really going up.  For two years we got less almost neglegable search engine traffic and not much visitation.  Now, we are getting more than 30 visits per day, and the visitation keeps going up. We might be getting 10,000 visits per month in a few months if I keep adding interesting articles!  Also, the traffic on the outsourcing site has jumped by 20% in the last month as a result of the blog’s new success.  I think that it might keep growing really fast if the blog continues to do well.

Subtle Persuasion as a marketing technique

September 29, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

The same thing happened to me more than once at more than one sushi joint. The sushi chef put a little wooden platter in front of me with ginger and wasabi. When you eat sushi, you have to have soy sauce, ginger and wasabi. But, I hadn’t ordered any sushi. Since the ginger and wasabi was already in front of me, I felt like I was already in the process of ordering sushi. I had no intention of ordering sushi when I walked in that restaurant. I wanted teriyaki. But, because of the ginger and wasabi, I ordered teriyaki, and sushi. Then, I went to another branch of the same restaurant in a different nearby town, and the same thing happened. Bizarre.

My question is, how can you apply the art of subtle persuasion in your business?
The sushi restaurant got me to buy something by giving me what they wanted me to buy — or at least a part of it. Psychologically, they got me in a buying mood just by letting me see something in front of me. If you are in the call center business and you want your clients to purchase data analysis from you as well, how would you do this?

Don’t give them the chance to say, “No!”
One way is to have packages where if you purchase a certain number of hours of call center services, you get one hour of data analysis per month at no extra cost. As clients get used to getting the data analysis reports, they might develop an interest. They might start asking questions. They might realize the value of the data analysis and then want more hours of data analysis. The key here is that you gave them the report without them asking for it, and without them consenting to get it. The minute you ask permission, most people will say no. People are in the habit of saying no to things that they don’t absolutely need, or that they are not in the habit of getting. The minute you get them into the habit without them saying yes, they will be a lot more likely to purchase from you.

Warm Marketing
If you studied sales, you will know the difference between a cold sale and a warm sale. Cold selling means selling to absolute strangers with whom you have no credibility. Cold selling is much harder, and generally doesn’t work as well as warm selling. A smart marketing understands the value of getting to know your prospects and clients one by one. You get to know their likes, dislikes and needs. But, most of all, they get to know you and get comfortable with you. If you give them great answers to questions and are nice to them, they will be much more likely to buy from you in the long run than from a stranger. Investing time getting to know people is a great sales technique — it just involves making casual small talk! If you are bad at small talk, it is time to practice getting good at it! But, the concept of getting existing clients to purchase new services by putting the service in front of them at no cost is another manifestation of warm sales technique!

Free samples
Just giving someone a sample without them asking for it is often a great way to get clients. But, sometimes, labor resources come at a hefty price, and you can’t just give them away to anyone. You need to select. It is a great idea to give free samples of your work to prospective clients. Or, give free samples of additional services to existing clients. The quantity of what you give for free should be small enough that it doesn’t put you out of business, but large enough that it gives the client an idea of what the service is like and how well you perform it. I created an entire business giving away free samples of advertising. My business now makes around half a million dollars a year and I still give free samples to about three thousand prospects per year to keep the ball rolling!

Think about the long run
Many businesses don’t like the idea of giving anything away for free. After all, they are there to make money, not to lose money. But, when you give something for free to an appreciative client, they will remember you long after the fact. Don’t waste free services on those who don’t appreciate it otherwise the work goes down the drain, but consider this — if you give $200 of services away, and you are rewarded by $200,000 worth of business from that client in the long run, not to mention potential referrals, was it worth it? What if you had to give samples to ten people to get that big client? Is that worth it?

Discounted samples
One way to make sure your prospect appreciates what you are giving them is to make them pay for their sample, but at a discounted price. You can give them the first 20 hours at a reduced price for example. If they don’t like the quality of the work, they haven’t lost much. But, if they do like it, they can stay with your company forever.

Tips for the road
If you are always giving your clients valuable tips, they is another technique that persuades them to trust you as a source of information as well as services. By giving tips, you mold their mind into associating you with the solutions to their problems. In two minutes of strategic talking, you have channeled their thinking into buying without even trying to sell them anything. Credibility, helpfulness, and knowing you makes people want to buy from you. So, don’t focus on hard selling, focus on getting people comfortable with you which means trusting you.

Summary
Think about using subtle persuasion in your business. Each of us is in a different business. But, if you spend a few minutes philosophizing about this last article, you might come up with some great ideas to make your business double its sales! Change the way you think about business and prosper!

How consumers engage w/small businesses on Facebook

September 25, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

More than half of consumers claim that Facebook is the most practical social medium for researching small businesses before making a purchase. There are various metrics on Facebook that allow the customer to get a sense of how good the company in question might be. First of all, Facebook posts often get great commentary from followers. Twitter and most other social mediums tend not to get much interaction. Google+ gets interaction, but doesn’t seem to have a very large regular crowd using it. Customers compare how many likes posts get and how many followers a campaign might have. The level of engagement and amusing content is also another factor, but customer reviews and ratings seem to be the most critical factor.

Special Offers Gain The Most Attention
Many companies also have special offers made on Facebook that can be redeemed or utilized in an actual brick and mortar. Additionally, promoted posts lead to more clicks to websites, and promoted posts with sweepstakes or prizes often do quite well.

Other ways that companies interact with their users besides Facebook special offers include:
(1) Promoted posts – which give you the ability to have a hugely augmented reach and get multiple times the visits.
(2) Sponsored stories – which entertain your clients and hence gain you loyalty and frequency of visits.
(3) Photo & video contests – you need a very large crowd to get people to be willing to do this. For small businesses, you might not have a critical mass, but for large businesses, it can result in free content for advertising or something fun to put on youtube.com
(4)Videos that encourage you to use your favorite products – a great way to get your customers to see your products in action.
(5) Prizes, giveaways and sweepstakes – this can be fun for your followers and attract new ones. However, prize giveaways are something that generally are not effective if you do them too frequently. For small businesses, perhaps twice or thrice a year is enough.
(6) Polls & Quizzes – Polls are great for you to learn what your clients like, or say they like. Their purchasing behavior is the real proof, but an added layer of knowledge can be helpful for your analytics department. Quizzes can be fun for some of your followers, but I wouldn’t have quizzes more than once in two months.
(7) Loyalty application promotions – Having a loyalty program can sometimes help a business and sometimes be more trouble than it is worth. But, try it out and see if you get any bites.

What types of businesses do consumers like to interface with on Facebook?
It seems that customers go more for restaurants, spas, and educational profiles on Facebook than for practical services. Facebook is a cyber-place that attracts people who want to relax and enjoy. So, you can see how seeing what’s new on the menu, or what your latest massage treatment is might be pleasing to a Facebook user. LinkedIn attracts more people who are interested in the practical side to business, networking, and having discussions about the technical aspects of their business. I personally run a Facebook for Notary service providers. It is a lively place to discuss technical issues, experiences, and ideas. However, the audience favors talking about personal experiences on the job which makes our profile personable and fun which is typical of a Facebook audience.

How should your company interact with its Facebook profile?
Facebook is a great tool to promote your business, but it is easy to use the network incorrectly. In my experience, the optimal way to use Facebook is to create a fun, engaging and entertaining atmosphere that people want to come back to. Yes, you can promote new products too, but don’t do it in a way that resembles selling. You can have specials too, because specials make people feel good. To create this type of pleasant atmosphere I recommend:

Informative posts with great photos – Facebook is one of the more visually oriented social media networks. Good photos will get you further on Facebook than Twitter for example. Having an interesting article about industry related information with a stunning photo will make people want to visit your page more often. If you are in the Restaurant business, you could have an article about a new type of dessert or steak, and have a sizzling photo to match it.

Regular interactive posts – Discussions are a great way to involve your users. My personal group averages more than a dozen replies per discussion and we are a tiny business. Having a quiz or poll from time to time not only will help you learn more about your users, but gives them a chance to interact with you in a meaningful way. I spend time each month going through several different forums looking for exciting new discussion topics to post and we typically post about 8-10 discussions per month. In your industry that might be too many, so you can experiment and see how well your discussions go.

Having special offers – discounts and specials are important, but don’t overkill. You don’t want your Facebook to look like an inexpensive marketplace. Keep the atmosphere fun, and then have specials from time to time. How often is up to you, but mix it in with the other fun stuff.

Stories – Stories that appeal to the emotions of your followers about experiences of your clients or others in the industry are a great way to get people to feel how their life will be like after they sample your products or services. Or, the story could be about things that your staff or other strangers not connected to you experienced. We use stories regularly and our followers keep emailing me saying how much they enjoy them! Remember, storytelling is the marketing technique of the future, so learn to master this art.

My Experience Marketing on Facebook
My personal experience with social media as a B2B website owner is slightly different than what the statistics might imply. When I make a special offer on Facebook, my newsletter, or anywhere else, it tends to be ignored. On the other hand, if I have a human being reach out to the right segment of my clients and offer them a special offer, it often results in sales (depending on how the industry as a whole is doing.) Our followers tend to like visiting our page regularly, love being involved in discussions, love to learn from other people’s experiences, and are generally fun. We get about 7% of our new clients as a result of our Facebook profile. They tend not to be the most business-like clients though which is not a surprise. Facebook is a feel-good site, and you attract happy people who like to interact on Facebook which is not a bad thing. LinkedIn might be a better place to find more business-oriented clients. As I said, I run a B2B, so the unbusiness-like people I attract on Facebook are in business, but don’t act like they take their business that seriously as a general rule.

Twitter strategy — target those who retweet a lot!

September 25, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, Marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I do a lot of social media for my business. It is hit and miss, and you have to understand analytics to know if it is helping or working. You need to understand the value of a follower, and how much effort is worth putting in to get a new follower. But, not all followers are created equal. Active followers are not necessarily harder to get, but they are in shorter supply, and worth a hundred times more than a dormant follower on social media.

I target active people on Twitter. I like people who tweet a lot. I like people with really top-notch content. I can retweet top-notch content without sacrificing my quality standards after all. I can also promote the blog articles that I read from other people’s top notch Twitter accounts, but put an original title and tags to accompany their link. That helps me, and helps them.

But, mostly, I like to target new followers who retweet a lot. If you post good content, and you have 1000 followers who love to retweet, your content could go viral, or at least show up on the keyword search results page on Twitter. The problem is that the longer you do outreach, you end up running out of the top notch prospects to follow.

I’m just starting a travel twitter @meander411
Luckily for me, the industry has thousands of active travel lovers who are on Twitter, and the content they promote is often excellent. The sky is the limit. I hope I don’t see the day when I run short of good prospects. We’ll see.

One of the obstacles that I run into is that many followers are from other countries who speak Italian, Spanish, Indonesian, or Hindi. I can’t function in any of those languages. I prefer English speaking followers. Another issue is that those who are not travel focused often retweet travel materials. Should I follow someone who is not relevant simply because they take interest in travel?

It is hard to say. We’ll find out how it goes after a few months!

They got customers they never knew existed

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
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Once upon a time, there was an outsourcing company in Mumbai called Cardamom coding. They were tired of being an inexpensive chop shop (or sweat shop — their AC broke.) So, they decided to do something more. Rather than engaging in a pursuit purely for the purpose of making money, they created a system that solved their customers most nagging problem. Service — reliable service with a smile.

The owner, Pratip, wanted to create an outsourcing system so convenient and pleasant that everyone would be happy. Little did he know that his door would be broken down by thousands of clients who he was unaware even existed. But, let’s stick to the story. By the way, this is just a story. There is no Pratip. Okay, there are many Pratips, but none like the one I am describing. At least not to my knowledge. And if there are, then I wish them the best of luck!

Pratip didn’t just do business. He listened.
He talked to his American, Brittish, Australian, and French clients. He learned about what they had to say. He felt their frustration. He empathized with their pain. He wanted to help, and he knew how. There was none of this, “But, how” nonsense with Pratip, because Pratip was a doer, not a talker. Okay, he was a talker, but he was ALSO a doer, and that is what matters. The main complaints that his overseas clients had were that they couldn’t communicate effectively with the workers. The writing and pronunciation skills of his programmers was dismal. His staff in reception were better, but not that much better. Follow up communications were never on time. And sometimes programmers got stuck on easy problems and didn’t follow directions. There must be a solution!

24 hours service — well almost.
Pratip decided to not only solve these problems, but more. He created a company so nice, that people wanted to be there. Pratip’s new company was open 17 hours per day. You could call day or night and there would be people to answer the phone. This was mainly to accommodate the concerns of overseas clients who were on different time zones. The result was that Pratip got twice the amount of labor for the price of his rent, since every work station could be used for two shifts!

Enhanced communication
Pratip hired people to answer the phone who were very smooth in English. Sure, it cost him more, but he wanted to provide an experience. Customers could come visit without even asking, and there would be managers waiting to help. Additionally, there were people there to socialize with clients. You could hang out in the lounge and enjoy samosas while Vikas and Angeli would chat with you. This company gained many clients simply because of the rapport that was gained from the friendly and engaging staff.

He also hired staff to teach his programmers how to write better emails and how to stay in touch better with the clients giving them better feedback. He also hired more lower level managers to keep track of how far along everyone was with their projects so that customers could be contacted with details. In addition to customers receiving regular feedback emails every 24 to 48 hours, they got regular calls from Vikas and Angeli which involved a lot of enjoyable chit chat. These two socialite twins could talk knowledgeably and entertainingly about any topic under the sun, moon, and even topics regarding other planets such as the weather on Titan — that condensed methane rain is really something! He also hired higher level programmers to inspect the quality of coding and to clean up messy code. They had the squeakiest PHP code in all of India and foreign clients were very impressed.

Cardamom became the only company in the history of mankind to get work done on time, and correctly every time, and with a smile and some chatter. Soon Cardamom had more clients than it could handle. I guess you could say that Cardamom became too big for its pod! So, Pratip went that extra mile and started a second office in a resort town in India. His workers could enjoy a relaxed, ideal lifestyle while making a comfortable income. His clients could fly over, and take a vacation while having daily meetings with project managers while their work got done. The entire staff at Cardamom and their clients had loads of fun, and became the largest software company in all of India and the world.

Many years later, Cardamom decided to merge with another company called Cloves & Ginger. They moved to a tea plantation near Darjeeling. They had all of the ingredients of Chai, so they called their new company Chai Software — a software company so caffeinated that it never sleeps!

The End

This story is not real, but emphasizes how it is possible, and highly desirable for outsourcing companies to work a lot more on designing a wonderful customer experience. I get a soothing and calming experience whenever I go to a spa. Wouldn’t it be nice to get the same or even better experience when at an outsourcing company?

What makes your outsourcing company stand out?

September 20, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Are you doing your work the same lousy way the other companies are doing it? Or do you stand out? If you stand out, do you know how to communicate how you stand out? If you are going to sell your company to others, you need to be able to mention many convincing attributes that your company has that other companies can’t realistically claim.

Through my career, I have learned that very few people know how to express what is good about their service. Many people draw a blank, or start mentioning long lists of adjectives with commas between them. I am responsible, reliable, and honest. Nobody wants to hear this. Most companies in India don’t want to talk about what sets them apart, they just want you to read their brochure or the FAQ page on their website. I am not interested in that. I want to hear it from you, and hear how you communicate. I judge people on how they communicate which is a problem, because most people can’t communicate up to even my minimum standards!

Let’s say that you are in Web Design for example. Someone asks you what makes your company stand out? You can mention that you do regular web design, but you like to hire people who are more experienced than other companies do. You like to specialize more in Flash design and less in multimedia. You prefer PHP, but do .net for existing clients only. Show them some of your best work. If your company has an internal checking system to check the work of your employees, mention that. If you have a specialized customer service department that is open twenty-four hours a day, that is a great perk.

It pays to brainstorm for a few hours and think about what makes your company better. But, telling them and showing them are two separate things. If you have a flawless web site where pages load really fast, and the art work is beautiful, that will leave much more of an impression than your self-aggrandizing commentary! If you speak well over the phone, and communicate clearly and in a helpful way, that speaks volumes about the type of service people might expect to get from your company. Of course in real life, it is not how well the salesman talks, but how well the web designers design and handle communication that really counts.

So, think about it. What makes you better?
Drawing a blank?
Start making a list of things that make you better
If your list is blank, then maybe it is time to try to think of ways to BECOME better — then, you can make your list!

Getting a new client is 6x as expensive as maintaining an existing one

September 19, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Customer retention is the name of the game for big companies who study analytics. I bet you study analytics too, right? Or, at least you take an interest in them, right? Well, if you don’t study analytics you can not be efficient as a business person, so it is time to start thinking about them now!

I read a study about a decade ago. It caught my attention since I’m a numbers and an efficiency oriented guy. The study said that for some of the larger phone companies, it was SIX times as costly to win over a new client as it was to maintain or retain an existing one. Phone companies are not limited in their size like our tiny companies. They can buy a new branch office in some remote part of the world at the drop of a hat (or a pin in the case of Sprint). They can maintain infinite quantities of customers and they try to get them too.

But, winning over a new customer for a phone company is not easy. They have to have special promotions, advertising (which is expensive), they give discounts for the first several months, or they give you a free piece of hardware. Many companies take a loss when trying to attract a new client. The costs only pay off if you can keep them for a long time. Maintaining an existing client is easier.

If someone is a client of your outsourcing company such as a call center, data entry company, etc., then they will have to go to a lot of trouble to find another company to take their job. If you are lazy, give bad customer service, or try to cheat them, they might leave you. Did you bother to calculate the long term profit that you could have gotten from that client in the life of your relationship?

What if your average call center client spends US$200,000 in the life of their relationship with you, and what if your profit margin is 5%. You just lose $10,000 by losing that client. Some companies try to cheat clients by a few hundred here or there in the beginning of their relationship. Perhaps they cheat to see if they can get away with it. Or, perhaps they cheat out of nature. Let’s say that you are getting $1000 per month from a client who would stay with you for four years. You will earn a gross revenue of $48,000 from this guy. Let’s say that in month three you try to cheat him out of $300 by creating a confusing bill with some undiscussed extras on it. He will start off by arguing with you. If he gets fed up he will go to another company. You will lose your $48,000 gross and $2400 long term profit because you tried to cheat him. Bad karma and dumb if you ask me!

What if you are just too busy to deal with your client’s concerns and complaints? The girl on the phone talks to quietly and your client’s customers complain about her. Are you too busy to find your client a new girl? Would it cost you 10 hours of labor to get a new girl? How much would it cost you if you lose the client altogether? How many hours would it take you to find a new client like him. Do you think about this? Maybe you should start thinking about this!

If analytics are a mystery to you, then find a friend who can explain basic business math to you, so you realize what you have to gain or lose by various types of business behavior!

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http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/07/18/gaining-market-share-or-gaining-the-type-of-market-share/

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http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/05/28/social-media-promoting-your-products-with-humor-information/

Quantity vs. Quality in Blogging?

September 18, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Is it better to write a bunch of mediocre material, or a handful of really good pieces? If you have a blog, you will notice that you cannot get decent search engine placement unless you have at least 200 articles, and some keyword variations or keyphrases that are getting noticed on Google. You need regular material to tweet on twitter, and lots of material to share on Facebook. So, do you need quality or quantity? Neither! You need articles that match the interests of your readers whether they are well written or not. People would prefer to read a poorly written piece about their favorite restaurant than a professionally written piece about the how the president of Congo lost his keychain.

Critical mass
Once you have attained critical mass and have written enough to populate your blog with one or two pieces per day, then you can think about quality. You could spend extra time on themes that your analytics show that your readers are almost sure to like. Or, you could touch up existing pieces that your readers already liked. If you touch up the top 5% of your material, you can link to those special entries from other entries, creating a chain of reading pleasure!

How long does it take to touch up materials?
I spend anywhere from forty-five minutes to three hours with a professional writer just touching up a single piece. This costs hundreds and is not worth it unless you have a good strategy. Touch up work before you do a major promotion of that work. If you are going to use Facebook PPC, or use it regularly on Twitter, or link to it from many other entries — then a touch up might be worth your money. But, what about articles that nobody likes no matter how well written they are? Let them sit by the side of the road. They are not worth it unless you are a top-notch fancy blog for a huge company where reputation is paramount.

Good luck!

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People who make the most serious clients want to chat, do you chat?

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Are you too busy to chat? Big mistake. How many serious clients are you losing because you are so unfriendly. Higher level business is more about talking than doing. The lower level people do the doing, and you do the interacting. Got it? People who contact you who have more to say, and more to ask, and contact you the most often are also the ones who will spend the most money in the long run even if they are not the richest. This is valuable analytical knowledge that I am sharing with you. I have not seen other blogs with such practical information.

Additionally, others will do more for you if you “chat them up!” If you like someone, take them out to dinner. The closer you get, the tighter your business relationship gets. In business, you will have better luck with people you enjoy being with. They will do better work for you, and you will have a better experience. People who enjoy you want to chat! Do you chat?

If the answer is, sorry, I’m too busy! Then, you are too busy for new clients. If you want new clients, you might not get any. Be open, so that you can interact with critical people as they arise!

Tweet:
(1) People who contact you more often and have more to say are more likely to be the best clients in the long run! Pay Attention!
(2) Are you too busy to chat? How many serious clients did you lose because you were unfriendly?

The art of the email

September 5, 2010 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The art of the email

People email each other all the time.  There are personal emails, business emails, mass emails, bulk emails, spam emails, and more.  The key here is how to make emails effective.

I get emails all the time from India introducing their company to me.  Most do not even mention my name in the email which makes it IMPERSONAL.  This is bad and should be avoided.

I get emails from clueless individuals stating that they are ready for “the” job. There is no job. I never advertised a job.  It is better to ask where I think they might be able to find “a” job.  Don’t go looking for work where it doesn’t exist.

I get emails from companies who want me to give them outsourcing work.  But, they never seem to ask what type of work I am interested in having done.

Making it personal
The key here is to successfully introduce yourself, and your company, and to create a dialogue with the other party. Most emails get discarded without a second thought.  So, the art you need to master is getting favorable attention and creating dialogue.  Step one is to know the name of who you are emailing and something about their company and their needs.  If you send generic emails to many companies, you will get ignored by all. However, if you make a special effort to get to know an INDIVIDUAL and make it personal, you might get some attention, especially if you are providing exactly what that person needs.

Mass emailing
Emailing for business is highly effective, and almost all companies use this tool. However, there are correct and incorrect ways to use this tool. If you email people materials they don’t want, or didn’t ask for, you are going to get marked as a spammer.  However, if you develop rapport with the people you are sending emails to, THEN you can send mass emails, providing that the particular materials you are sending are of interest to ALL members of the group you are mass emailing.  Mass emails can create a magical momentum for blog marketing, or just keeping in touch with your clients. I use mass emailing DAILY, and I do it correctly, and get 20% response rates from blog promotion emails, simply because I know all of the 7000 individuals I am mailing, and know what they like to read about.

Segmenting
Read any MBA book and they will talk about segmenting.  If you are emailing an individual, you customize the content of the email to please the individual who is reading the email. Answer some of their SPECIFIC questions and you win the game.  If you fail to answer their question, but give them a link to some generic page which touches on similar issues, but doesn’t really answer their question, then you alienate the customer by making them feel pushed to the side.   But, if you are emailing a GROUP, how do you customize your email to please the group?  You segment.  If you have 10,000 clients, you figure out how to divide them into groups according to their interests or needs.  My blog promotion emails are sent to people who are active in a particular directory, and I study their click behavior. I keep track of what types of posts or articles they like to click on, and then I write more articles that are similar in nature, although each article is unique!

Conclusion
Step one is to find a way to get to know your contact person.  Answer their particular questions, and find ways to meet their individual needs.  Once you know a person or a group on an individual level, you can email them regularly with materials which they find interesting. The minute you send them materials that they don’t like, or fail to answer their questions, then you lose the game and alienate your contact!

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