I’ve talked about offering your clients/customers something of value that you use to introduce yourself, to ease them into doing business with you, that lends your company something of a expert status or as the specialist in your niche. I don’t mean magnets or free candy either. I’m talking about information (which as a business owner you have a lot of to share) that customers are looking for. Answers to their questions, which as a result lead them to view your company’s services/products as the solution to their pain. Remember we talked about pain in this post? You can click back to review if you want to.

One of the easiest information pieces you can create is a free PDF report (sometimes called a white paper, especially if it’s especially technical or full of factoids, and thus more formal) and a PDF report doesn’t have to be that formal. It can simply be a topic that you often hear clients asking you about that you think you can answer, WHICH (very important which here) you can then use to present your company as the solution to their larger issue.

How to put together a free report?

1. Decide on the information you’re going to present. Either use a survey with Constant Contact (reviewed in this post) or from some sort of feedback you’ve received from your most trusted customers. This let’s you know quickly what people are looking for, what they are seeking when they are looking at your company (and perhaps other companies like yours).

2. Think about format. Word docs can be locked sure, but a PDF just looks good. Plus it can be downloaded and forwarded and no matter what OS your clients are using, they will be able to view it and print it and even forward it on.

3. Keep it simple. Write short, don’t use a lengthy introduction, get right to the point. Use bold headings, numbered or bulleted lists (like I use a lot on this blog) and think about structure. Use an easy three-paragraph structure if you want to keep it to one page (with a nice resource block at the end talking about how your company’s product/service can help them with this if they’re interested; you know what I mean, the marketing piece), otherwise, think carefully about attention spans if you decide to go over one page.

And that’s it. To prove my point, I’m going to keep my info to a three-paragraph structure. And now for my marketing minute.

real/brilliant, inc. helps companies jump in sooner rather than later to the social media scene. Rather than direct a small business to spend thousands of dollars on a website just to get a blog, real/brilliant, inc. is all about what can be done now and fast. The goal is not to spend precious time thinking about how to get online, the goal is to just get online. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook pages, Squidoo, YouTube, and LinkedIn are powerful tools that working together can vault a small business into the Web space, and all for not so much effort (especially with our help) and without spending thousands of dollars. For a free consultation to discuss how your company would benefit from social media, visit our blog or find us on Twitter.

True, many of us are entrepreneurs. And we run businesses, yes. But there’s a difference between entrepreneurship and business. And it’s a lot of boring stuff.

Profit and loss reports. Marketing plans. Managing vendors, employees, and customers. Handling payroll, handling HR (even just you as the sole employee), taxes, corporate entities, CPAs, lawyers, the list goes on and on.

Entrepreneurs have many of these skills, otherwise, they wouldn’t be entrepreneurs; however,  the difference between an entrepreneur and a business is that with a business you’ve settled on something. You’re going to focus on this certain aspect of your entrepreneurial work in order to make it something bigger–a business.

1. Get good advisors. I rely a lot on my CPA and my lawyer. They keep me legal with taxes and corporate stuff, and are excellent for bouncing ideas off of. I also have an advisory team that cares about my well-being, my work-life balance, and my goals. Nice to have someone to chat with about these things.

2. Go slow and ease the transitions. I remember the year I switched my sole prop status to a corporation. The paperwork (in triplicate), the licenses to fill out, and new bank accounts, the D&B rating drama. I’ve run a business (moving it from entrepreneur status in the late 1990s) since 1995. I incorporated ten years later. Notice I didn’t just run out during the first month and set all this up. I eased into it. Of course, some of you super successful entrepreneurs will need some of this sooner than I did. YMMV. But don’t rush. Set up your business smart.

3. Get help. I outsource more than I used to. In 2008, I worked myself almost to death. Way too much for one person to handle. This year, I outsourced a few things (not the work itself, no, no, no) including some web design, some accounting, even some marketing work. I do not recommend you outsource your paid work as your clients are hiring you not someone else. A lot of my clients ask me about that and I’m always happy to report that no, I do all my own writing and editing. I may not know how to tweak my blog, but that’s okay.

Turning from an entrepreneur into a business owner requires some elbow grease and will provoke a certain amount of stress, for sure. Remember, others have been this way before you and we made it. You can do it too.

Running a biz in this economic downturn can be exhausting. Either you’re desperate for work, and thinking about throwing in the tail (no, no, no, don’t do that!) or you’re so booked with work, you dare not turn any down because what if this little downturn takes a few years to fade?

How do you refresh and recharge if you’re either dying for more work or dying from the work?

1. Do the easy stuff immediately. If you have papers to file, calls to make, and quick job that won’t take much brain power, just get it done and ASAP! This clears the way for your next step, which is to ascertain your situation (good or bad).

2. Take stock of what’s left or what you absolutely must get done in the next day or two. Make a priority list. Now that you’re cluttery tasks are done, you can focus on making sure the jobs you do have, or the marketing you must do NOW can get done with the best of your ability.

3. With looming tasks ahead, be it a project or finding a project, you must divide it up into smaller doable tasks. Each day, you go down that list of smaller doable tasks and you conquer one or two. Every day! Forget that you have so much work, there’s no way to keep up. Forget that this is your last project. Forget that marketing scares you to death. Just break it down and then mark it as done.

4. Don’t think negative. You’ve got to be positive. Positive people land jobs and projects. Positive people are successful at jobs and projects. Negativity ain’t gonna do it for ya. So throw that out right now.

5. Remember that a little bit of action goes a long way. If you’re making small amounts of effort everyday, you are moving forward. You can relax, you can go to sleep at night knowing you’re accomplishing.

Now, get back to it. And print out this list and tack it above your computer screen. We’re all in this together! Please know that everyone is feeling the same pressure. You are not the only one.

I’m in a infoproduct course that began this past week with Michael Port (yes, I know! I’m so excited), one of my absolute favorite marketing people. His books have helped me so much and once again I realize that he truly has developed a true contrarian approach to marketing.

Anyway, one of the biggest hindrances to services-based entrepreneurs is how to find people who are interested in their service. Seems like a no-brainer for most, I mean air conditioners and furnaces are always in demand. My sister and brother-in-law own a large HVAC company and we’ve spent a lot of time on the phone recently talking about marketing ideas, how to expand in this strangely yo-yo economy and talking about how they can better serve their existing customers. They are booked solid with work, tons and tons of projects, but cash flow is still a main issue, especially because they run a crew and buy lots of equipment and those bigger projects take time to finish. So, lately I’ve thought a lot about how they can put together a marketing funnel that uses infoproducts to draw in prospects for their HVAC company. Plus, I’m putting together a marketing funnel for my own corporate blogging and book writing businesses.

How does it work?

1. Who is your customer? This question comes up a lot in marketing. It used to frustrate me until I read Michael Port’s books. In those, he pretty much makes it startlingly clear what kind of customer you should be looking for and what their needs are. Don’t believe me? Check out his books on Amazon: Michael Port

2. What are they looking for? If you don’t know what your prospects are looking for in a service provider, how will you know what to offer? One issue I have with my business (corporate) blogging is that folks looking for help with their social media don’t wear name tags nor do they all congregate at my local Starbucks (darn!), so I have to find out exactly what they are looking for and then offer it.

3. Where do they look to find someone like you? Again, wouldn’t it be nice to just pop in to your local gym and have a line of folks waiting to ask you about your specialty? And you aren’t a personal trainer? I know. So you’ve got to find out where they look to find you. Online? (duh) On Twitter? Google? Facebook? Now we’re talking.

4. When do they look for you? Are they ready to buy? Ready to introduce themselves and get a card? Or just looking for info and not wanting to offer anything other than an email address? You should find that out.

5. How can they contact you? Do you want them to follow you on Twitter (follow me! oh wait, that was distracting, sorry) or on Facebook? Do you want them to go to your web site?

Anyway, the more information you have as answers to these questions, the easier it will be to set up a marketing funnel and move from just a consultant to someone people trust. Don’t you want to be the first thing that comes to their minds when the problem you know you can solve shows up in their lives? Of course!

It’s really easy to start a blog, right? Not so easy to keep up with a blog. The relentless need for a syndicated stream of content requires a blogger to actually think up and write more than just once in a blue moon (when they feel inspired).

To blog effectively, one has to write even when they DON’T feel inspired. How in the world is a blogger to do that?

1. Read a lot. If you’re not reading what’s happening in your niche or at the very least reading the news of the world, well, you’re not going to have much to say.

2. Develop theories. Everyone has opinions, but oftentimes we don’t develop those out into theories on how things should work. I have theories on a lot of different topics, BECAUSE I read so widely. I have a theory on how the Web will overtake print (it’s happening) and I have another theory on how folks can adapt from print to the Web easily. If those turn out to actually work, well, good for me, but the key is that I’m thinking and working on them all the time. I’m not just grabbing thoughts out of thin air.

3. Set a writing time. For me, I write better in the morning, not early in the morning, but mid-morning. I don’t write well in the middle of the night. Set up a time when you write best and write blogs then.

4. Plan out a writing calendar. A lot of blogs are rather simple. On one day, you do a Q&A with someone, another day is devoted to the latest news, and so on. Make sure you know what you’re doing days in advance. It helps you develop those theories I was talking about before.

5. Read other blogs. Often, I come away from another blog with an idea that I implement in my own business and then voila, I’ve got a blog post for myself. This happens a lot, so take care that you’re actually being original and not just copying someone else.

One of the easiest things to do with your business (or just your blog) is to create a monthly eZine. You can have people sign up and then each month you send out a custom newsletter (including some of your best blog posts plus new content) to them. It’s a great way to reach out and stay in touch with prospects and readers.

1. Find a topic. This can be your blog topic or something slightly related.

2. Keep it short. Less than 500 words is fine. I also include the word count on my eZine, along with an estimated time for reading, like 3 minutes.

3. Keep it plain text. No fancy formatting, no stationery, no headers. Just plain text that comes through in email as clear as you can make it.

4. Organize the eZine for ease of reading. Give them a table of contents and then make it easy for readers to scroll through quickly.

5. Limit the advertising. Folks are bombarded with sales messages. Just put your contact info on every single issue and leave it at that. Any more and folks will ignore your eZine.

Ever feel like all you do is answer questions, talk about your product, talk about your services, and you never really get anywhere?

Let’s see how much closer we can get you to Yes.

1. If you’re talking about your product, do you include how it solves a client/customer’s problem? Do you turn the product’s features in benefits? Does your client and customer know specifically how your product will either make their life easier or help them do something faster, or lengthen their life? And these are just surface issues, there’s a lot more complication if you dig a bit.

2. If you’re talking about your service, does your client and customer feel confident in your ability? Why or why not? If you promise something, do you deliver it? If you’re making claims you can’t keep, the customer won’t say yes. Why not meet them halfway and discuss some of the negative results that may happen. If you’re upfront with what you can do and and can’t do, your clients are going to trust you more.

3. If you’re always answering more and more questions, what about your sales pitch is missing? Are there specific questions you get often? Maybe you can answer those sooner, by providing information in print form, or by just including the information in a verbal pitch before the question comes up.

The key to Yes is a clear understanding of your client’s needs, a clear understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, and an even clearer understanding of the order in which all that information must be communicated in order for a sale.

I say it’s worth taking a look at your sales process often, for tweaks, major overhauls, and improvements.

Now, go get a Yes!

Most folks think that good customer service requires a large room full of staff trained to just answer the phone. Um, if you’re running a small business, that just is not feasible, and totally unnecessary.

You can have a fantastic customer service department, even if it’s just you in the office. Here’s how:

1. Your phone message should be pleasant, inviting, welcoming folks to leave a message. Once they do leave a message, you need to call them back. One of my clients has a toll-free number that rings to his cell and he answers it 24/7, no questions asked. Sure, you say, if I don’t want to have a life. Well, this guy makes a lot of money. His company offers a very good service, further complimented by a live person at any time of day or night. If your customers need to reach you, well, you’ve got to be available.

2. If you don’t answer the phone, find someone who will. If you’d rather not haul a phone with you everywhere, then you need to hire someone to answer that phone, especially if your business relies on customer service. If you offer plumbing, or if you are an electrician that relies on service, well, that phone is your lifeline. If you don’t want to do it, you need to find someone to do it. They can cover the hours you can’t cover (overnight, weekends, etc.).

3. Try to solve the issue within an hour. If a customer just needs info on how to do something, deal with it immediately. If they are experience a tech problem, try to fix it ASAP. If it’s something that requires more time, explain that and promise to keep them updated.

4. If you can’t resolve an issue within half a day, then you need to have some sort of token ready. A free month of service, a discount on products, a waiving of the service fee. Something that says to your customer “Hey, you’re important to us!”

5. Once you’ve resolved the issue (whether within the hour, that day, or even a month later), send a thank you to your customer for letting you know about the problem. This can be a simple handwritten thank you note, or another token of your appreciation, say a promo for their next purchase, a discount off an upcoming service, something that shows your customers are worth a LOT to you.

Trust me, it goes a long way. And in this economy, it’s the companies that appreciate their customers that will survive and prosper.

All shiny and fun. Sparkling new, something to watch as an oddity: that’s been social media for many. The early adopters are scrambling to show how effective social media can be for folks recently put out of work or for businesses struggling to keep their staff even in the midst of lean times. (My sis works at an HR think tank and she said the word is to hang on for just a bit longer. In her words, “We are in the muddling middle.” They counsel companies who are determined to reduce hours, cut wages, but to keep people employed and to keep the health insurance going for as many as they can.)

In the midst of those type of situations, what’s social media got to do with anything?

Well, it is the future. When your company recovers (if you’re struggling), you’ll be making plans to dive into social media, trust me. Or if you’re doing well now (there are MANY companies booming right now), then by all means, get in there.

How, you might ask? What’s in it for us? What does it mean?

Well, in a nutshell, look around you. What is dying?

Print.

Newspapers. Magazines.

Where are they going?

Online.

If your company wants to survive this new world that has arrived, you’ll need to create your online presence and make it work.

This means Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

This means Stumble Upon, Digg, and YouTube.

Where do you start?

1. Set some goals.
Make sure your desire to play with social media doesn’t overwhelm the needs your company really has. What do you plan to accomplish online? Create a community, drive traffic? How is that accomplished? This requires some serious thinking.

2. How will you accomplish those goals?
If you’re looking to drive traffic, you’ll need to start putting up some content, either free or for your paying clients that invites them to visit your site/blog/Twitter profile. If you’re looking to establish a presence online to combat negative press, you’ll need to have someone monitoring the Internet presence on a continual basis. The key to negating bad press is to deal with it as soon as possible.

3. If something doesn’t work, do you fix it or drop it?
For blogging, there is a six month period of continual posting in which you are building past your launch phase. It is not unusual for there to be no comments, no people interacting with you. This is the phase of you partaking information to your niche. At about 9-12 months in (in some cases even longer), you should see more interaction with your audience. If you don’t see that, are you providing content that invites participation? In that case, I would try and fix it. Hire a blogger, get some feedback from your audience, something. The only time I tell folks to drop a social media project is if it no longer meets their primary goals.

4. The social media aspect must fit somehow into your marketing, networking, or sales funnel. If it doesn’t fit into any of those, you might need to rethink what you are doing with social media, and whether or not the activities you’ve chosen have actually gotten you closer to your goals.

5. Social media will change, so flexibility is key. Not to start and stop, start and stop, but to realize that your audience has shifted, your market’s needs have changed, the tenor of the discussion about your company or products has morphed, etc. Be aware that your job is to stay one step ahead of or abreast of these changes and to shape your social media accordingly.

More questions, refer to the social media books I referred you to in this post. Or contact me on Twitter, in the comments, or via email.

How will you begin to implement a social media plan? What will you do today?

There’s no difference, trust me. It’s the same marketing practices you should use when the market is booming (and who says your market isn’t booming?). You should tweak your marketing message to fit the moods of your prospects, but I wouldn’t slant your marketing plans to fit the outlook given to us by people in the media, politicians, or folks who work outside your market segment.

So, with that clear, let’s begin.

1. First things first: who do you work for now? Do you have a list of current clients? If so, I’d begin thinking of ways you can help them. Can you start an ezine with quality information about their concerns? If you sell products, can you review some of your products so that your customers know what else you offer? If you are a services business, can you give them information about making better decisions on business purchases? Why not a customer survey? (Keep it short.) Current clients are your priority. It’s cheaper to keep them (if they are a right fit) than to find new clients.

2. Find more good prospects. How can you do this? What kind of web site do you have? Does it give away free stuff? Do people come away from your web site with a good knowledge of what you can do for them? If not, why? Along with that ezine, why not do a free report? Often called white papers, these outline all the very good reasons why your services or products stand out from the competition, or why your unique angle offers better results. It’s customer-focused, not business-focused. It provides several good “action steps” prospects can take on their own and a “call to action” that prospects can choose to take at their convenience.

3. Keep those prospects updated and in touch. An ongoing marketing funnel doesn’t keep pushing prospects toward the company’s preferred outcome, they stay in contact with the prospect in case the prospect needs something (this is the contrarian way). As soon as the prospect asks, the company leaves them alone, but the trick is to be so helpful, so gracious, so relevant that the prospect wants the company around for as long as possible. You need to find several ways to keep giving your prospects more information so that they want to stick around (and buy) for the long term.

4. Offer a promo. One of the best marketing funnels I’ve seen in action isn’t even mine. (Surprise!) It’s my local gym’s (and probably countless other gyms around the country use the same idea): every new gym member gets a free hour of personal training. You experience the service, meet the trainer, use the equipment, and voila, you’ve signed up for personal training sessions. (Never mind, it took four years of gym membership before we signed up for personal training; we’re stubborn folks.) What can you give as a promo? A free ebook? A free hour of consultation? A free seminar? Make sure it’s packed with solid stuff, otherwise, prospects will run away screaming.

5. Add perks once the customer buys. If someone buys your product or service, they get access to a specialized forum, they get free email support for a year, they get a print copy of the ebook, and on and on. Add extra goodies when you sell something and your customers will love you for life. Make sure the extra goodies are relevant, however, as I’ve received tons of free goodies that were worthless wastes.

Now, I hear you saying, “That’s not marketing. That’s just customer maintenance.” Well, if you came here looking for hard sales tactics, you’ll be disappointed. I’m a contrarian with marketing and I don’t think some of those old tactics actually work. Sure, if you’re just starting out, you may have to use them here and there, but the more professional you are, the less you should be using them. If you’ve had customers buy from you more than twice, you should not be treating them as part of a list. They should be your utmost focus. Don’t market to them; partner with them, help them, listen to them, give them more value each time. For more information, read Elizabeth Marshall and Michael Port’s Contrarian Effect. Check out the real/brilliant shop for other marketing books worth checking out.