I love Trap Bar jumps. I wish I could say who gave me this idea as I'd love to give them credit.
In any case, to properly discuss Trap bar Jumps, we need some context. I love Olympic lifts but, I also know they are not for everyone. All our athlete programs, except our baseball program, begin with Olympic lifts. However in our summer Pro Hockey group we have a number of athletes who have never trained with us before and are either unfamiliar with Olympic lifts, don't want to Olympic lift, or both.
This means that we need an alternative explosive exercise. In some cases we did additional jumps, in other swings, and in others we used our MVP Shuttle or Vertimax.
When we started to Trap Bar Jump, this quickly became our go-to exercise for power with athletes that were not Olympic lifting.
Before we get too carried away, lets talk a bit about “how” we do these. We know our “why” is explosive power development but, “how” can get a bit fuzzy. Our idea as to “how” to do Trap Bar Jumps comes from the work of JB Morin. JB's actual work was in sled sprinting but, if you bear with me you'll see how the two ideas mesh.
JB has spent years investigating the correct way to determine loads for sled sprints. To make a long story short, JB's extensive research basically led him to conclude that the sled load should result in a time that is 150% of the unloaded time at the same distance. This means that the correct load for a guy who runs a 1.5 sec 10 yard dash is a load that caused him to run a 2.25 sec 10 yard sled sprint. The big key point here is that load is not based on the athletes bodyweight but is based on how the load effects his speed. Join StrengthCoach.com today to keep reading........
Retailers and manufacturers are constantly on the lookout for new ideas and strategies to spur growth. And while smart companies are giving digital serious consideration, they’re not doing it at the expense of the store experience. Likewise, in our excitement around mobile shopping, let’s not overlook our physical spaces and the tactile experiences they offer. Yes, stores have been our retail workhorses for centuries, but don’t make the mistake of assuming we’ve wrung every bit of growth to be had from them. What can be done to spur growth from the fleet of branded spaces that currently exist? Plenty. When I look across most categories, I see great similarities between competing brands. Brands get stagnant and complacent. All it takes is a little courage to get beyond the safety of sameness. I believe innovative thinking can only happen when you take a long hard look at your brand and ask, "What if?" What if we look at things from a different perspective? What if we do things a new way?
Customers get excited by new. We see this time after time when we open a store, especially if the exterior has had a makeover. Inevitably, customers who have forgotten about you will try you again. "New" attracts attention. The good thing about new is that it comes in a variety of degrees, from a complete overhaul to a new coat of paint and some impactful communications. Sometimes new can come in the form of an exciting offer. The worst thing you can do is not try. Don’t fear failure. New ideas can be tested and adjusted, several times and ways, until the register starts ringing. Recently, a client told us the secret of their instore success. They are always asking themselves, "What if?" And as a result, they continuously give the customer something they haven't seen before. Something new. So there’s always a little excitement, a reason to shop. The opportunity is there, in every square foot. All too often, the problem is with the limits of our thinking not with the limits of the store.
Interbrand Design Forum has nearly 40 offices and a practice that brings together a diverse range of insightful right-and left-brain thinkers, making our business both rigorously analytical and highly creative. Our work creates and manages brand value for clients by making brands central to the business’ strategic goals.
Business blogging has many advantages. Blogging gives your company a chance to engage with your customers in a less formal setting than on your company website. A blog serves as an online platform for you to let your customers and potential customers in on some behind-the-scenes details about your company, highlight new products, announce special promotions and more. It can also be great for your SEO efforts. However, just creating a blog won't do anything; you need to actually write in it, a lot. Many companies blog weekly or even daily, which means you need some great content to keep your readers interested. Are you dealing with writer's block every time you sit down to compose a blog? Here are 10 great topics to help you get started. • Summarize an industry-related news story. At the end of your post, link to the original news story and say something like "read the full article here." If you do this often, people will start to think of you as a resource for the latest updates in the industry, which means they'll check back often to stay in-the-know.
• Put the spotlight on an employee or current customer. This allows others to get to know people who use your product or service as well as your employees. It humanizes the company which makes it easier for people to trust and relate to you. • Share details about a recent company event. Whether you want to make an announcement about when, where and why the event is happening or share photos and details about how the event went, your business blog is a great platform to do so. • Post a video. Create an entertaining video that pertains to your company or industry and post it on your blog with a short summary paragraph. If you can, make it funny, people are more likely to share a funny video with friends. Funny and entertaining videos will also help keep your brand in people's minds. • Write a how-to post. How-to's are one of the most popular blog entries. Did you know that 80% of people who visit a blog are visiting it for the first time? This is because they were searching for information (such as how to do something) that they found on the blog. Once they're reading on your blog, they're more likely to search through your other entries, then hopefully your website. • Describe little known 3rd party products that work well with your product. This is useful information that your target audience (customers or potential customers) would be interested to know. • Answer a common customer support question. This will not only help your customers but it also shows them that you genuinely care. Potential customers will see this and instantly gain more trust in your business. • Highlight a product or service. If there's a particular product or service you are promoting this month, feature it on your blog. Include a photo and let your readers know how this product or service makes their life easier, healthier, happier, more successful, etc.• Provide tips and tricks of the trade. Share some inside information on your industry with your readers. Giving them information they find interesting or useful but can't get anywhere else is one way to get them to come back and read in the future. • Ask your customers' opinion. Want to know whether or not people liked your newest product? Post a few poll questions as a blog. Encourage people to leave their opinion in the comments section. It's an excellent way to get feedback about your product or service from the people who matter most, your customers. It also shows customers your company cares about what they think and you're working to ensure they have an excellent experience.
The possibilities are endless when you're coming up with things to write about for your business blog. It's important to always put yourself in your target audience's shoes. Think about what they would be interested in reading about. What kind of information would entice them to read then motivate them to share with their friends? Then start blogging! They'll appreciate your thoughtful and original content and return to read. Readers will hopefully turn into customers who will then eventually turn into advocates for your brand.
Local SEO service provider, Local Splash, is headquartered in Santa Ana, California. Its proprietary technology and process secure high local search engine placement for single-location businesses and national chains with a local presence. To learn more about Local Splash and its local Internet marketing services, visit www.localsplash.com.
Today’s business world is certainly different than it was just a few years ago with the Yellow Pages, magazine ads, and radio spots. These days, consumers rely on the web and advertisers must focus on SEO, PPC, keywords, and social media. What will the future of digital marketing look like? The global marketplace is changing on a daily basis. For instance, advertising with Yellow Pages was quite important for a business’s overall exposure not too long ago. The same can be said for direct mail campaigns and magazine ads, as well as spots on the radio. However, now that we are living in 2018, a business needs to focus its attention on the latest marketing trends, such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), and social media. Relying on online marketing in today’s business world, a company can track 100% of its inbound calls, emails, and online chats to figure out a business’s exact costs down to the penny. Folks have search engines, like Google, in the palms of their hands, pockets, or purses. When a local business used to spend approximately $25,000 a year advertising in Yellow Pages, they can now depend on websites and content management systems for less than $10,000 a year.
Quality content writing can attract search engines for no cost, as long as you know the latest and greatest tricks to the trade. You can even set your own budget for targeted PPC campaigns, while connecting with friends and followers to share your messages on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites don’t cost a dime. One technique that will be amazing for your business getting seen online is a good mix of original content and digital images. These days, your business must get a little bit more creative than simply posting stories and reviews on the web. Place relevant and informative links within your content too. Surfers of the web want to see vivid photos, listen to audio files and play with interactive components, as well as watch video clips. It is smart to introduce visitors to your page with a short video introducing your business and its products or services. Save longer videos on your webpage for in-depth descriptions for seemingly interested customers who have already scrolled and clicked on your site. The more visual content that is relevant to your business that’s on your website, the better. Allow people to instantly share the information via email or on their social media pages. As far as what the future of adverting will consist of, internet marketers will be able to identify exactly when their targeted customers are searching the web. Movie theaters will be able to advertise their show times to an entertainment reader every Friday afternoon, while ads for a New England Patriots jersey will appear when a sports fan is checking the football scores on during the playoffs. One thing will remain certain, marketing solutions will continue to progress, just like they have for the last five decades.
Fortunately for your business, Icon Website Design is familiar with the best digital marketing techniques in the world of business. Gain the online exposure that you’ve always wanted. Call Icon Website Design today, 800-558-1017.
Some people prefer these steps : 1. Write articles online. Writing quality articles can potentially bring hundreds of thousands of targeted prospects for your site. By writing articles you feel known as an expert, and like all experts you must produce a high volume of writing to become household name. Articles reach more people and promote website's far more than any other online marketing strategy. On top of that it's absolutely free. Individuals are on the Internet to find information, giving it away free people will be more inclined to read your sales letters and purchase your products. Also when publishers use your posts in their feeds or e-books your links appear within their items further bringing you increased traffic.
2. Subscribe to Google AdWords. If you know, don't know, or at best heard of keyword optimizing, here is one of the places it comes to play. Posting those ads that appear just about everywhere (additionally about the left side of the google search), is a good spot to grab the attention of search engine prowlers. They work using cost-per-click, meaning that you pay a little amount money, anywhere from a few pennies to some dollars, for every time your ad is clicked on. You can manage just how much you spend advertising on google everyday, in addition to view analytics to track if your ads are bringing in quality traffic. You don't need to become a SEO guru to get the most out of AdWords, you just have to make sure that you make use of the same keywords and tags used in everything linked back for your site. Even though you do not make an ad campaign you can use the adwords keyword search tool to discover what keywords are searched often and how much these ads are spending. There are lots of keyword tools available such as Word Tracker, which gives a 7 day free trial with its powerful related keyword generator to get going. A free keyword tool is google itself. Begin with a blank search box, key in your keyword, and as you do so a drop down box will appear with the most commonly used keywords associated with your own house entered.
3. If you are serious about making money online, consider different viral marketing strategies. This is the best approach to promoting through person to person. Keep in mind that crazy chicken from the Burger King commercials? Sure you need to do, that chicken was hilarious and also one of the most successful viral marketing strategy up to now. That chicken started out like a hidden camera of a man in a chicken suit, it got on the internet and the video literally blew up over night getting hundreds of thousands of hits instantly. Other types of viral marketing are your affiliate links being posted in e-books, emails, a friend telling another friend, as well as those crazy chain text messages. 4. Open a You Tube account. You Tube is really useful it's ridiculous, and that's why you should take advantage of it. Recently, it seems that ads can be displayed on You Tube. It can also be used in the same sense being an article only it shows that you are a real person which people appear to like. Place an instructional number of short video's about playing piano chords or whatever and add your link over the video and in the box about you, as your videos have more hits so will your website selling piano lessons. Post an interesting video or something to maintain people chattering about and YouTube can be used like a viral marketing tool. 5. Make a sticker having a catchy logo and your web address to find the visitors that you may be unable to reach through the Internet alone. This can cost a little bit of money to have printed but utilized correctly is going to be worth it. This can be really fun and you will get your friends in onto it to spread the word even more. My personal secret with this approach would be to result in the stickers as annoying as you possibly can. Literally get out there and slap 'em everywhere, with sufficient of these out there people will be unable to get the image and URL from their heads until they check out the website themselves. For some reason, it seems rather difficult for most people to perform, but you do not worry because there are more creative methods to do it. Did you recently produce a website or blog? Are you considering creating one? The key to success on the web is getting traffic, find out how web masters are becoming a large number of targeted traffic views with minimal effort. Now, let’s talk about Stealth Traffic Formula created by Shaun Smith and how it may help you. I really hope this short Stealth Traffic Formula Review will assist you to differentiate whether Stealth Traffic Formula is Scam or a Real Deal. Stealth Traffic Formula is a new coaching program developed and being launched by Shaun Smith. It promises to let you drive abundant traffic with simply no hard work.
If you're still wondering, you might like to check out Stealth Traffic Formula Review to learn more about the product as well as Shaun Smith reputation, or... Is Stealth Traffic Formula Scam or perhaps a legitimate product? Find all of the answers on my review site now!
We have seen the word a million times in articles, magazines, blogs, even Facebook, but it is very likely we do not have the slightest idea of what "Networking" actually means. We might relate it directly to Facebook and we definitely know it is an important tool when it comes to doing business. But, do we know its actual objective? Networking can be defined as the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions, and it specifically refers to the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business. Now that we finally know what it means, how do we get it done? Should we just go to parties, meetings, benefits and events, talk to people about our company or business, exchange business cards and be sociable? Yes, that is exactly what a networker does. The main idea is to make new contacts with the objective of forming mutually beneficial business relationships. That is it! Now you are an expert on the subject.
There is another aspect we have to consider, why go ahead and do business networking? Some entrepreneurs and business owners actually think business networking is a more cost-effective method of getting new clients than advertising or public relations. Business networking can be conducted in a local business community, or on a larger scale on the Internet. Social networks play a very important role for companies nowadays. Even law firms and oil companies have Facebook and Twitter in order to attract more clients and be able to get the word out there about what they do. Social networks make companies more approachable to the general public and potential future clients. That is the reason why the position of Community Manager has boomed over the last five years. If it is not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, your company literally does not exist.
To be the greatest networker known to man, just follow these simple, yet life changing, tips:
-Always be honest. No one likes a liar.
-Carry your business cards with you at all times.
-Try to meet at least five or more new people at an event.
-Be friendly.
-You will need to give to be able to receive. The business relationship works both ways.
-Go get them!
Vanessa Fardi / NEUVOO
Email: vanessa@neuvoo.com
Neuvoo is a job search engine that indexes jobs directly from companies' career websites, placement agencies and job boards. Your job search starts here: Australia - http://au.neuvoo.com/en Germany - http://neuvoo.de/de
Interesting content creation plays an important part in successful brand marketing. While you may; write your own content, or have people do the writing for you, managing all this content can get time-consuming. You need to collaborate and schedule the publishing of content at the right time, without any blunders like overlapping. This is why there are now content management tools that can help you ensure you make no problems while posting content. Five content management tools which are used today are: 1. TruEdit TruEdit is a cloud-based tool that lets users publish content from anywhere. It is a platform that manages your content and workflow so that you can focus more on content creation. It's perfect for people and businesses which require regular content publishing with the right flexibility and customization. It enables both small and medium-sized workgroups to produce, manage and schedule the posting and uploading of their content for various mediums including mobile, print, tablet and the web. 2. CoSchedule CoSchedule is considered today's #1 drag-and-drop marketing editorial calendar for Wordpress. It helps you organize and schedule your team's blog posts through the use of a single master calendar. It is this calendar that collaborates and streamlines your team's work and in the process, increases your productivity. Like for example, it is based on this calendar that it automatically sends messages to social networks and places your blog and social media. 3. PostHeads PostHeads is 100% user-friendly and manageable social media management tool that simplifies communication between writers, ciyelluies, and clients and maximizes post reach and effects. It's an all-in-one solution that helps improve your productivity through features like an integrated calendar, task manager, media bank, posting comments and much more. It reduces the need for sending excessive emails between team members, and the risk of missing out on important information while keeping everyone up to date on their calendar.
4. Content Launch Content Launch is a content marketing platform that more than 300 expert writers and journalists use. It helps ease content marketing for marketing teams because you can manage, and distribute your content as required with a single click. You are at liberty of scheduling, planning and organizing all your individual and campaign content on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. And as the application comes with complimentary tools like Hubspot, PaperShare, HootSuite, and Outbrain you can also develop any content type you like while inviting others to the idea and creation steps. 5. Promapp Promapp is one of the simplest cloud-based process mapping systems around. It was created keeping everyday users in mind and helps large and medium-sized business create and share their content and information in real time through a central database. It's perfect for use in various industries like government, education, transportation, healthcare and retail. Everyone in these industries can collaborate on the process building phase and users can also control process variations across different regions and products. With its personalized navigation feature, users can plan their processes based on their mode of operation. Other features worth mentioning are its collaboration-friendly system, and how it helps handle quality assurance, risk, and HR related matters. Search TruEdit to find out more information about workflow management software and marketing enablement.
Why Is Local SEO Important For Small Business Owners In 2017?
By: Nikolay Peshev
[video below]
Why should you as a small business owner be concerned about local search engine optimization (SEO)? Most companies nowadays rely on the internet or hire SEO professionals for attracting new customers, sales and lead generation. For those of you who don’t quite understand what SEO is, it is simply defined as a process of making your website visible on search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo. If your business has still not launched a website yet, then you are really missing out on many potential customers. You want to provide search engines like Google critical information so they will place your website in the top five spots on the results page. The job of a search engine is to take the information typed in by the user and locate the most relevant websites using those keywords in your area. Simply put, if you are not engaging in local SEO, you are not on that first page of results in your area – and your competitors are! By investing in local SEO marketing, you are staying competitive with the other companies while giving you brand name exposure 24 hours, 7 days a week and are sure to gain new customers – even while you sleep. Let’s take a look at the top three reasons why local SEO is so important for small business owners. 1. New Customers Internet marketing, including local SEO, attracts people in who are already looking for your product or service. They are already convinced of their need which is why they went searching in the first place. You just have to present yourself on the first page of search engines like Google and voila. You still have to convince them that your company is the best to purchase from, but half the battle is over. Once they come to your website, if you have invested the same tedious work to optimize the user’s experience with you by providing the content they seek, then you are well on your way to gaining a new customer.
2. Brand Awareness People subconsciously trust search engine results. If Becki’s Dog Grooming is #1 on search engine results, then Becki’s must be the best. But most users do not just run over to Becki’s within the next hour to have their dog groomed! They do, however, file it somewhere in their mind or bookmark it. They go clicking around the internet numerous times before making a final decision. If your website is employing great local SEO services, how often might that user come across your company name while conducting his/her search? What if your company came up three of the five times they searched for that desired service or product? Next thing you know, they have clicked through to your website. 3. Customer Insight If your website is properly optimized, it will increase your search engine visibility, usability, and credibility, all of which increase traffic to your site. Now that you are enjoying higher numbers of visitors, Google Analytics (which every website should have set up) can track valuable information about your visitors. Find out what browser they use, what keywords, the technology they use, their geographical location, the days and times they are most active, how much time they spent on a page, etc. This information will help you discover your target market, hone-in on your advertising and determine strategies based on facts rather than just educated guesses. The better you know your customers, the better product or service you can provide, the higher the return on investment (ROI). Local search engine optimization is no longer an option for small businesses that want to be competitive and grow. Local SEO will provide visibility, traffic, credibility, branding and help you gain valuable insight into customer behavior. It is a very wise choice by thinking of investing in local search engine optimization services as it would provide exceptional ROI, business exposure and sales. As a Google Official Partner and a company rated A+ by BBB, 411 Locals served to more than 40,000 local businesses
How great would it be to be able to attract people into your MLM business, that wanted to succeed just as bad as you do. Well, according to the quote, "opposites attract", something on one end of the magnetic pole attracts the opposite end. Well this doesn't apply to attracting the right people into your business. If you sponsored people who were opposite of you, you'll be adding a bunch of lazy people who doesn't want to grow a MLM business. So, what I'm going to do is show you how to attract and sponsor more people into your MLM business.
MLM Sponsoring Tips #1 Sponsoring more people into your MLM business shouldn't be a pain, right? You shouldn't have to twist someone's arm, or call them over and over. Doing that will ruin relationships and make you look desperate. Which is why the first MLM sponsoring tip is leadership. When demonstrating leadership the right way, people will follow you where ever you'll take them. Which is why when you twist someone's arm or pester them into joining your MLM business, you're losing the battle of demonstrating leadership. It's extremely important that you're confident and willing to lead. This creates a magnetic attraction. You'll attract and sponsor more people as a leader, not as a begger. MLM Sponsoring Tips #2 A commonly misguided myth for growing a business is to bring people into your MLM business based on the opportunity. It's much better if you find people who really love your products or service. When you're able to sponsor people based on your products, you'll find yourself attracting dozens of people. And what happens then is you're able to retain your downline. Many times, we add a bunch of people into out downline. Later, we see that they're not consuming the products and they say that they're really not wanting to grow the business. That's what happens when you add people based solely on the opportunity. After a month of them not making any money, they're gone. So, be sure you find people who really wants the product. When you do, you'll have people attracted to you and your team. MLM Sponsoring Tips #3 Another great sponsoring tip is to sort, not sell. What I mean is instead of trying to sell everyone your products, or trying to sell them on the opportunity, just sort through and find people who wants to buy your products and join you in your MLM business. If they don't want to consume the products or if they're asking how much you're making, just let them go. Don't try selling them.
When you're able to sort, you'll notice that people you're adding to your MLM business are just like you. You'll be different in some ways, but overall, you're all striding for basically the same goals. This will allow you to attract and sponsor dozens of people into your business who are just like you. Use these MLM sponsoring tips to attract and grow your business. And by doing so, you'll not only grow your business, but attract help you attract the right people.
"Sales is something you do for someone, not to someone"
Bob Proctor
Trying to close a sale can often times feel inauthentic, stressful and forced. And when that happens, you can guarantee that more than likely, you will not be signing on a new client. Because a forced closing of the sale is a surefire way to turn off the client and lose the sale.
And because many of us feel awkward in a closing of the sale process, we often try too hard, which can be a turn off to the client. It can make our client feel like we are "pushing" them to buy something they aren't interested in buying. Remember, people like to buy, but they don't like to be sold to.
Here are three tips to incorporate into your closing the sales process that will help make it more of a soft close, rather than a hard close:
1-Connect with your prospect. When I think about the times I've felt uncomfortable when someone tried to sell me something, it was always when they had no idea what I was looking for or what I needed. They never asked me any questions, but instead just launched into the features of a particular product or service. You must connect with your prospect, asking them what they are looking for, how you might help them, and what they might have in mind. Taking the time (and the opportunity) to really get to know your prospect, find out what makes them tick, what they might be struggling with and what might solve their problem, is the first key to a successful closing of the sale.
2-It's all about them not you. Too often, salespeople tend to focus on themselves. Again, some of the more unsuccessful, uncomfortable sales experiences I've had have occurred when the salesperson did all the talking...about themselves. A more successful approach is to set up the sales process, so the customer has the opportunity to know as much about you and your services as possible, prior to the closing of the sale process. That way, during the closing of the sale call, you can focus strictly on them. This might be pointing your potential customer to a place on your website that has frequently asked questions, or to point them to the testimonial section of your site. That way, they have the opportunity to have at least 98% of their questions answered before they even meet with you. Then you can solely focus on their needs.
3-Celebrate. People who buy always like to be reassured they've done the right thing. So be sure to celebrate your client's decision. Let them know they've made a great decision and be sure to offer your congratulations. Making them feel great about their decision is the last important step of the closing the sale process.
Using these three tips will make your closing of the sales process feel more natural and authentic and help you confidently increase your close ratio with lots of happy clients.
Mandy Schumaker, President of Higher Performing People, is a former sales and management executive in the newspaper industry, who has extensive experience in executive coaching, leadership development, sales and marketing, facilitation and team building. Receive the free audio CD: "7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs" at www.mandyschumaker.com.
Physical Office Location is The Better Marketing Strategy
By: Emily Anne
As a freelancer, I’ve considered the pros and cons of working from home vs. having a physical office location on many occasions. There are many obvious benefits to working at home versus going into work. Come to find, there are also many benefits to having a physical location, even for small businesses. Here are a few key factors that show how having a physical office location is a better marketing strategy:
[Address]. Having a business address can actually play a huge role in the online visibility of your business. Local businesses with a physical location tend to show up more prominently online than businesses without. As we well know, we are in the technological decade where everything is right at the tip of our fingers. If we don’t know an answer to a question, we immediately search online for it. This is exactly what we do when it comes to business services. If an address can improve your online visibility, it’s definitely something worth checking into.
[Innovation]. While people feel innovated at different times and in different ways, it is a fact that sharing ideas can make people even more innovative. If you’re working at home and not regularly communicating with your other employees or partners, it will be difficult to bring in the innovative aspect a physical workplace does. While we have video chat features such as Skype, it isn’t the same as face-to-face collaborative brainstorming.
[Focus]. This one is one of the most obvious ones to me. As a freelancer working from home, I realized how difficult it could be to stay attentive in my workload on certain days. There are so many opportunities for distraction when working from home, that it can be hard to even get focused. The nice thing about having an office is that you’re very attentive on your workload once you’re in the office.
[Consistent Schedule]. I noticed that my schedule was never consistent when I first started freelancing. There would be days that I would sleep in until noon and wouldn’t start work for hours after waking up. I would then stay up late and ruin the opportunity for an early rise the next day. Having an office rental gives you a set schedule, while still giving you the freedom to come into the office the days you choose.
[Psychological Benefits]. Bevmax Office Centers wrote an article that I found very interesting. In the article, they discuss the benefits of freelancers renting an office. One of the reasons listed was psychological benefits. They state that getting out of the office can become a rare occurrence for some freelancers. I know from experience, that this is actually very true. When I started taking on more clients, I noticed that I didn’t set the proper schedule for myself to have much of a social life. I was constantly fighting deadlines and working into the late evenings. Going out to an office gives you the opportunity to get out of the house, have social interacts with passerbys, and also gives you the networking opportunity by being surrounded by other business offices.
While working from home is also important for freelancers. It’s important to consider office rentals for important team meetings and/or conferences. Getting the team together in-person can have phenomenal benefits on the overall organization. If you’re an entrepreneur who isn’t at the stage of team meetings, it’s equally important to consider a virtual office that has a physical address. Office rental agencies, such as Bevmax, offer many perks for their virtual office packages. Having a designated mailing address and a fax service is definitely one of those many reasons.
Well, you invested in the creation of a great product, earmarked a healthy budget for marketing, and made the sale. Now what? In today’s economic world it is entirely possible that even a company with moderately high sales revenue may have to consider one or all of the following: shrinking margins, loss of market share, customer attrition, or simple loss of profitability. Certain factors are completely out of the control of most businesses, things like government regulation, supplier price increases, or a drop in discretionary consumer spending. In such a world, it is ever more important to recoup the investment your business makes in acquiring a new customer or client – especially if your business is a niche market or involves large, infrequent purchases. But, in all cases, it is a truism that positive word-of-mouth and repeat business are the hallmark of most successful businesses. Unfortunately, most companies adopt a ‘Field of Dreams’ philosophy, an "if we build it, they will come" model of customer satisfaction. The ‘it’ being, of course, a high-quality product or service. No one will argue that quality and value engender referrals and repeat buying, but what happens when you’ve engaged a fleet of six-sigma gurus, created layers of stringent QA processes, and then a third-party, like a distributor, dealer, or other channel partner drops the ball? Let’s face it, mistakes in manufacturing and services occur, businesses experience loss of talent pool, or partner vendors aren’t as quality oriented as they could be, so, knowing that even an unhappy customer can be saved by a quality follow-up process, what do you do? Even more critical, how do you even uncover if there are problems or obstacles to repeat business or referrals within your sales process? Many organizations do sales follow-up, like customer satisfaction outreach, which is a laudable endeavor and exactly what this article intends to address. With that in mind, there are some important factors not to ignore when starting down this road. First factor, there are some new wiz-bang ways to reach out to people; email, tweets, and SMS. While these are viable methods, there is a catch with this kind of approach; not all consumers are connected or ‘tech-ready’, and you don’t just want to hear from a demographic slice of your market – you want as varied feedback from as many end users as possible. And, the telephone is still the most pervasive means of communication, because it has a more personal touch and more credibility with a larger segment of people. The second factor to consider is to not just engage some existing staff members with a little extra bandwidth to make an outbound effort! There are a few serious problems with doing customer satisfaction research in-house. They include competency, bias, credibility, and expense. Believe it or not, making possibly hundreds or thousands of calls, asking the same questions over and over, without sounding like a drone or worse, like an antagonist, is a rare skill. Also, asking questions and recording responses without adding bias or ‘spin’ can be difficult – especially if you are, as you should be, invested in the success of the company or are friends with peers being criticized in the resulting commentary. But let’s say you make the decision to handle the job within the company, and you’ve gone through an unbiased effort to reach out and capture experience satisfaction, and you uncover that there is a lot of positivity about your product or services that you should share with the world. How credible is it to toot your own horn, and will it be taken seriously if you do? After all, every criminal in prison is innocent, and every manufacturer’s product is the best on the market… just ask them! Additionally, one needs to consider that setting up the infrastructure, sourcing and training agents, capturing the data, and synthesizing and analyzing the results will be a considerable expense; especially if your sales volume is seasonal or you need a scalable solution. One easy way to overcome these difficulties is to outsource the work. Outsourcing call center work means a company can worry about innovation in its goods and services, instead of call center technology. (Source: Mike Hasler, "3 Signs It’s Time to Write That Call Center RFP," Blue Ocean Contact Centers.) However, during the process of vetting and hiring a big call center company that does outbound calling or other out-reach processes, you find that this kind of outsourcing can also be very expensive, and the vendor’s agents, particularly non-native language speakers, may not be subject matter experts, have communication gaps, or may have a turn-over rate approaching 300%! So, what is the answer? Times are tough, competition is fierce, customer satisfaction and retention are even more important than ever, but you don’t want to possibly damage your customer or client relationship by putting too much distance between you and the end-user communications. The answer is to enter a partnership with a smaller, more invested contact center that is more concerned with quality than volume and more committed to not only helping you deal with problems, but also helping you promote the good news. In short, you use a small contact center, because the benefits of a smaller, strategic service bureau are agility; a smaller provider has less bureaucracy and responds quicker. Less expense; a smaller firm has less overhead, less corporate governance to satisfy, and will take on smaller, strategic jobs and charge less. Even if a larger bureau is cheaper, there is focus; in order for a large firm to be so cost effective, they will generally pool your calls into a general call queue, or the agents they employ must utilize tens and possibly hundreds of scripts in a given shift, or may even be overseas and use English as a second language. A smaller contact center group typically has five or less clients, so the agents can focus on your customers and quickly become subject matter experts. They usually also have Agents based in the US who won’t be as prone to miscommunication as ‘off-shore’ workers. A greater command of English and familiarity with American culture means greater satisfaction with customers and fewer complaints than foreign call center workers. (Source: NPR, "Outsourced Call Centers Return Home," August 25, 2010). Then there is responsiveness; managers of smaller centers generally have a more involved relationship with the entire Agent staff and are more personally involved in your business, meaning critical information flows outward to your consumers faster and more seamlessly. Finally, and just as important, is motivation; generally speaking, a small vendor that loses an account feels a much deeper impact than a 200-seat house would, and is therefore more motivated to be an engaged partner in your customer retention efforts. A smaller, strategic contact center can be a true partner and can act as an extension of your customer service division or department. In the end, what will best serve your sales channel is an easy, affordable means for unhappy and happy customers or clients to talk to you, so that the investments your business makes in talent, product quality, advertising, and sales don’t just mean the benefit of a single sale – you want a process creates repeat business, and even more importantly, referral business. It is harder to turn a profit today, and you can lower costs until you are cutting into muscle, or you can find ways to increase your ROI by effectively listening to your current customers, generate a positive buzz about your brand, gain customer loyalty, and uncover what works and does work about your product lines as well.
I'm a freelance Excel guru based in Wellington, Florida. I've been in business since 2000 and work mainly with outsource vendors. While I specialize in spreadsheets and VBA, I now also do work in Access and SQL. If you need specific help in the outsource contact center arena, do not hesitate to contact me at troy.cottam@telcarecorp.com.
There is a big difference between advertising and spam and it is unfortunate that a high percentage of new internet business owners do not realize the distinction between the two. This is critical because while an interesting, adequately written Internet marketing campaign can help to entice new clients and have existing clients stay with you, spam is liable to distance both new clients and existing clients. This can be exceedingly harmful to profit margins for a business owner. Email campaigns can be remarkably effective tools in the business of Internet marketing. Email campaigns may incorporate mailing regular e-newsletters containing useful information as well as advertisements, short instructive email courses or emails giving discounts on goods and services. Trusted clients who opt into your email list may probably not label these emails as spam and may buy other goods and services from your business as an upshot of this marketing procedure. In addition other internet users who have specifically requested more details about your products and services normally also find this kind of advertising to be useful.
On the other side of the coin, email recipients who did not ask for information are liable to see your emails as spam. Making use of email addresses is a deceiving approach and using such addresses to send out a hoard of emails will nearly always be considered to be spam. Take heed that if you are reported for spam on a regular basis, you are likely to endanger your business. Having said that, most companies will allow you to explain your actions and let you off with a warning, however there are some who are much stricter and will just close your account.
So it is in your best interest that you learn as much as possible about the laws of Spam. Most mail providers have built-in spam filters and will automatically block certain words thus stopping your marketing email getting through in the first place. It is worth while purchasing a software program that can check your emails before you send them so that your efforts do not get wasted.
Lastly, Focus Groups provide a marvelous possibility for business owners to promote their business. By taking part in a discussion you will unearth a big number of Internet users who probably have an interest in your market. You could consider including a link back to your website in your signature or posting the link when it is fitting to the dialogue. In all events, care should be taken to carefully study the Focus Group guidelines to certify you are not carrying out anything improper. Replying to every Focus Group you stumble on and posting a message containing a link to your website at a time when it is not relevant to the discussion is liable to be construed as spam by other members. If they start to look at your posts as spam, they are not likely to look in on your website via the links you post and more likely the administrators will exclude you from their Focus Group.
Banner ads are one of the utmost favorite marketing strategies which go along with an Internet Marketing program. These ads emerge at the top of websites and are displayed across the width of the website It is vital to recognize how they can be overused and be labelled to be spam. Randomly placing your banner ad on a few websites which are expected to captivate visitors similar to your target market is streetwise marketing, placement of your banner ad on any website which will advertise the ad heedless of the target audience can be construed as spam.
Graham Burt is a very experienced Internet Marketer because he learned from the experts.. It is well known that 95% of new online business entrepreneurs fail due to a lack of knowledge.
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