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Get your business sorted!

With oil now at $140 per barrel there seems to be no early end in sight to the current economic plight of Gordon Brown's Britain.

Indeed many experts now agree that the only turn around in sight maybe when there is a change in government and that may be a couple of years away.

So how do we survive in business and continue to prosper under these conditions?

Well a couple of months ago we took a look at how to protect your business cash position and stop unscrupulous clients from using your business as a free bank or worse still as a free supplier. Anyone who didn't get the last info and would like a copy, please reply to this e mail and we shall be delighted to forward a copy to you.

This month I want to talk about how to maximise your business potential through low cost marketing - in other words how to get more profitable business at minimal cost.

There are only THREE ways to increase your business turnover;

One
Find more new clients - can be expensive and as you are an unknown quantity to each other there may be issues.

Two
Sell more to your existing clients - by far and away the easiest people to sell to are your past and existing clients. There is already a bond of trust between you and it is always better to work with "the devil you know".

Three
Put your prices up. Maybe a desirable option but many people shy away from this for fear of losing clients. But maybe now would be a good time to look at your existing pricing schedule. Are you doing business at unacceptable margins? If so WHY? Sometimes it is better to turn away unprofitable business and keep your facilities free for a more profitable opportunity.

As the essence of these newsletters is brevity I intend only to work on one idea here and as you guessed it's the easiest and cheapest thing to do SELL more to your existing clients. Many businesses, including the biggest in the country spend fortunes advertising on television and in the media to attract new clients yet they make the mistake of treating the existing clients, the ones they make their huge profits from, like second class citizens. The building societies are a great example of this and I love the Nationwide's campaign "sorry brand new customers only". It's a very funny campaign and always makes me and my kids laugh, but are you guilty of not looking after your existing clients?

How often do you contact your existing clients?

If I could give one piece of recession busting advice it would be this.

Cancel all the marketing money you currently spend trying to attract new clients and instead spend it on contacting your existing clients and past clients.

How do you do this?

The cheapest and easiest is the way I'm doing it right now; the e-mail newsletter. This can also be done by post but is more expensive and time consuming. Can you set aside the time to do this yourself or would you need someone else to do it? If it's not for you personally who else in your organisation could you delegate it to? Remember in order for a newsletter to work it has to give the reader something of value. Of course you want tell your clients all about new products or special offers but you should also give something of value for FREE !

The other easy thing to do is just get a list of everyone you have done business with in the past and call them. You can do this yourself or get someone who is under utilised in your business to do it for you. If you don't have anyone consider contracting the job out. There are many telesales companies out there but be careful and try to do a deal where you only pay for results not the time they spend.

Anyone seriously interested in marketing should read Jay Abraham's book "How to get everything you can out of all you've got" if you like motivational and selling CDs I listened to a real cracker last month "Mastering Influence" by Tony Robbins it really is the best sales CD I've every listened to and full of great ideas and techniques to help you close more business.

As always Leasing is a great way to market your products and I intend to look at that in more detail in my next letter to you.

In the meantime if I can be of assistance with any area of your business please contact me by return e mail.

Until next time

Regards

Brian Burns

CEO and Chairman

P. S. Due to the credit crunch we are getting more calls than ever from clients and suppliers who are being let down by their current lenders. If lines are engaged when you call please be patient.