You can read it here > http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/000455.php

Hope you like it.

So, what do you do about it? Whenever you are getting something printed make sure you get a copy of the final draft before it goes to the printers, and pass it around the office for everyone to see. Leave it on the lunchroom table, post it on the noticeboard, whatever, but the more people that see it will decrease the likelihood of there being any errors.

The bad news … If there is an error in the final printed product you will (more than likely) be responsible to pay for the corrections and re-printing. This is why it is so important that you get it right the first time.

So how do you create a base of raving fans? This is quite easy, but takes several steps, and it is something you need to work at. Below are some ideas that I have learned both through my own business dealings, as well as from the reading and listening that I do on a regular basis to help me improve my business skills.

Step 1: To create a fan base, start by making sure your business does what it does well! It doesn’t matter what kind of industry you are in. If you want people to talk about you and your business then you need to be very good at what you do.

Step 2: Take the time to talk to people. Your clients aren’t going to be able to go out and rave about who you are unless you can educate them in what to say to people. Take the time to meet with your clients and make sure that you tell them the kind of client that you are looking for. It might be a company with a certain need, or a person complaining about a current supplier that doesn’t meet their needs. Also, tell them how they can recignise these clients in their own day-to-day dealings with people.

Step 3: Get your company employees raving about you. Your employees are there to help you build your business. At the end of the day, if your business does well, their job is more secure. They might think that they only work for you from 9-5, but really they can help you reach people in their own circle of relationships that you might not have contact with. Teach them how to keep an ear out for people who can benefit from what you can offer through your business, and train them to always carry business cards that they can give out.

Step 4: Go to networking functions and give out your business card. Your card is the easiest way for people to remember you, and to able to make contact when they need you. When you go to any kind of seminar, conference or business meeting make sure you are well stocked with cards, and give them out.

Step 5: Be real. When people come to you, or to your business, make them feel like they are contacting real people who will take the time to help them solve their problem. Remember that the ultimate goal of any business (other than making money) is to help fill a need. When a new client comes to you, make sure that you take the time to get to know the best possible way to help them.

As always there is more I could add to this list, but it gives you an idea of the things you can do to get people talking about you and your business to their friends, family and business associates.

1. Let your clients get to know your company, your staff and even you. While we don’t want to spend all our days socialising with our clients and not having enough time to do profit generating activities, if your clients feel that they know who you are and what you are about, they will feel more confident in their dealings with you.

2. Be open with people. When a company or individual hide information, or aren’t 100% open about a product or service, the people they deal with will pick this up. This may not be right then and there, but at some point it will come to the surface and the client will know they have been dealt with badly. This only ever has a bad outcome, and it takes time to repair any damaged caused by this kind of business dealing.

3. Develop Trust between you and your clients. This can be simple things like making sure you deliver your promises on time. Giving them more value than they pay for, or finding other ways to build that level of trust so that your clients feel comfortable in coming to you to solve their problems, and referring their family and friends to you as well.

While there are probably a lot more things that you can do to help increase your KLT factor with your clients, this should give you a good starting ground from which to work.

More and more companies are looking to their sites as a real way to bring new clients into the business without the costs associated with traditional advertising or marketing methods.

As with any advertising or marketing efforts you need to be able to track it’s success (or failure). There are many great tools that can give you this information, and most are low cost, and even free. If you don’t have analytics software running on your site you need to talk to your designer and get them to get it up and running so you can continually tweak your site to make it an effective part of your marketing efforts.

By using analytics software and keeping a close eye on the traffic to and from your site you will know what keywords are and aren’t working for you on your website, what pages people come into your website on, what pages people leave from, and how long they have spent on your site. With this information you can better channel your visitors to the information they are looking for, and ultimately to a call to action where they either buy your product or service, or contact you for more information.

If your current designer can’t help with analytics software or you’d like more information, please drop us a line. We would love to have a free chat with you and show you how easy it is, and the benefits that this software can bring.

So how can you make this happen in your business?

The key here isn’t to put yourself out of pocket. The idea is to increase the “value” of the service you offer. Let’s take the example of an mechanic. You might book your car in for it’s regular service. You know it is going to cost you $70, and you know this is fairly average for the work being done. How would you feel if when you got back to your car after the service was done and you found that the window had been washed, a fresh deodorizer had been placed in the car, and he replaced the wiper blades at no charge. You’d feel that this mechanic really cared for your car, and you would go back. Not only this, you would tell your friends and family about that little extra service, and chances are if they ever needed a new mechanic for whatever reason, they would use yours.

As I said, the key here isn’t about putting yourself out of pocket. The idea is to put a few little extras in that make your clients feel that you care about them, and make them want to talk about your business.

When we were sitting over coffee and talking about the site, the client mentioned that the previous web designer would only communicate by email. No phone calls. No meetings. Only emails. I can’t believe that a customer service company would operate in this way.

At Mayhem Design we are happy to get together with you to discuss your web needs. Give us a call if you’d like to get together for a chat about how we can help you get the most out of the Internet.

My thoughts for today come from some work we have been doing for a client recently. When you are getting a website set up make sure you know why you are paying for what. A client of ours has been paying a hosting company for the hosting of their site (almost $400 per year) but wasn’t clearly told what her credit card was also being billed for to the tune of another USD$100 per year. It turns out that what she was paying on her credit card covered the whole cost of the hosting, and the middle-man hosting company was charging the almost AU$400 per year for not doing anything. While I believe that there is nothing wrong with a mark-up, I think this goes beyond the realms of fair business practice.

So my advice … make sure you know what each invoice is for, and for how long each renewal is.

We hope you enjoy reading our blog posts, and we welcome all feedback so that we can make this a useful tool for many people and companies.

Happy reading!