5 Tips on Increasing Your Sales

The only difference between leads and customers is “yes”. However the key for today’s businesses is are you asking the right questions to achieve the “yes” to convert a lead into a sale? Here are a few tips on how to achieve the conversions from potential customer to a paying customer:

Step 1 – Ask the Right Question

Increase Your Sales by Improving Your Lead Follow Up

Don’t assume that the questions you have asked potential customers in the past are the right questions today. Example: Are you ready to buy our one year package? May work better today as “Would you like to purchase our one year package or would you prefer trying it first on a month-to-month lease?” Today’s customers like having choices and they don’t like to feel cornered, so offering them a choice can make them feel heard better and also give them an incentive to make a longer commitment on their own terms.

Write down the questions you ask potential customers today and try mixing it up a bit with an approach including alternatives. Then measure your success.

Step 2 – Review Your Past Prospects and Learn Something About Your Company

While it is important to determine your closing ratio (leads to solds) it is equally important to review who you sold to last month and the month before and compare who they were and what product or service they bought. Then compare them to previous customers to see if their priorities or needs have changed. One of the advantages of being a small business is you are able to move your strategies quickly when you see a trend change. However if you are too busy to review who is buying from you lately, you may miss an important trend that can propel your company over your competition. Take the time to review your current customers and their buying trends this year over the past.

Take a minute to jot down who you thing your primary customers are and what you think they buy the most and why? Then compile the actual statistics from your sales and a customer description. Do your expectations match the results or is there any trend you may have missed? If so, consider if there is a product or service that would help your business grow or  improve customer satisfaction?

Step 3 –How are you reaching your new leads 7-9 times to gain their trust?

Did you know that it takes 7-9 impressions with your brand in order for potential leads to trust you enough to become a customer? Write down on a piece of paper a trail from your brand’s first contact with a lead to how you would reach them 7-9 times using Email, Social Media, Traditional or Online advertising. How much time does that take you? Then reduce the time from first contact to 7-9 touches.

Step 4 – Don’t Skip the Phone Call or Phone Number

When you send out information to a potential customer make sure your phone number is there. Also make sure a personal call or Email is part of the plan in Step 3. Remember the goal is trust and in order to trust you, I need to feel like you personally reached out to me (even in an E-Mail). By creating an outbound calling follow up, you will achieve more trust than sending out another Email or ad. If your target market prefers texts, make that part of your follow up.

Step 5 – Track Your Successes

Don’t forget this step, track your leads and when they close. Record the steps in between and you will find a winning formula for now. Always be open to changing your program but note when it works well and as your ratio of leads to solds increases recognize that your planning led to the difference.  Then stay open to observing the next trend in three months, go through this again and see how your sales process has changed

Final Step – Come to my next Workshop and Learn More.

Liz Harsch has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, the City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company and to learn about her FREE Workshops and Paid laptop bootcamps like facebook (next one 5/30 in Torrance), twitter, linkedin and analytics, visit tailormadeadvertising.com. To schedule her as a speaker for your organization, association or department, email her to request a date at tmade.mkt@verizon.net.

Are YELP Reviews hurting your Business?

I get a lot of questions about YELP when I do social media training and also through my own clients. So I recently talked with my YELP provider and pinpointed the questions I am asked about the most. You may agree or disagree on the answers YELP Corporate provided me, however if you have received a negative review the information may be helpful to help you resolve the issue.

Keep in mind however that my best advice to you is to be sure that you are reviewed by satisfied customers on YELP and other review sites at least 3 times a year. I know that can be a challenging goal depending on the age of your target market, however there are some steps you can make to get those reviews:

1) Make a computer available so customers can review you right after their purchase or provide a quick link to your Yelp review page for them to easily know where to post that review.

2) Send out an Email each quarter that is designed to get folks to your review sites quickly with the goal of achieving reviews with easy links to your pages.

3) Make sure you let customers know they can thank you online, it will be faster for them and more helpful for you.

4) Many review sites take into consideration how often the reviewers use the site, so try to determine which of your customers use those review sites regularly.

Here is the corporate answer on my questions customers ask most:

How come my reviews on yelp have been removed?

Our Support team may have removed it because it violates our Terms of Service or Content Guidelines, or a reviewer might remove her own review of her own accord. We also try to showcase on business pages the most helpful and reliable reviews among the millions that are submitted to the site. Not all reviews make the cut, and those that don’t are posted to a separate “Filtered Review” page. Filtered reviews don’t factor into a business’s overall star rating, but users can still read them by clicking on the link at the bottom of the business’s profile page. We address several common questions asked by business owners here: https://biz.yelp.com/support/common_questions

2.    Does advertising on YELP makes a difference to a business’ YELP reviews and results? No effect at all. Please see our myths page that addresses this: http://www.yelp.com/myths

3.    What can I do if I am reviewed poorly by a customer and the review is unfair?: We have an entire section on responding to reviews in our business support that best addresses this question:https://biz.yelp.com/support/responding_to_reviews

4.    What is my recourse with Yelp and who do I contact to expedite a solution? All questionable content is evaluated by Yelp’s User Support team.  They review the content the user has written and compare it to Yelp’s Review Guidelines.  To get the evaluation process started, please follow the steps below:

A. Go to http://www.yelp.com/contact.

B. Select “Questionable Content” from the drop-down menu.

C. Identify your business.

D. Provide commentary as to why you’d like the review evaluated.

Our User Support team should respond to your inquiry within 2-3 business day.

5.     Is there a phone number where I can get help?  Our user support team is email based and can be reached via www.yelp.com/contact. They will respond to your questions within 2-5 business days.

Let me know if these tips work out for you. For more information about my company or a FREE Email or Event Marketing Trial, Contact Liz Harsch.

Liz Harsch, has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, the City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company and to learn about her FREE Workshops and Paid laptop bootcamps like facebook (See Liz’s FREE Workshops Schedule) twitter, linkedin and analytics, visit tailormadeadvertsing.com. To schedule Liz as a speaker for your organization, association or department, email her to request a date at tmade.mkt@verizon.net.

Setting & Achieving Your 2013 Sales or Marketing Goals

Before you hire another service provider or put more money into your website, ask yourself one question—How will I grow my business/association in 2013? What is your plan? What are your goals? You cannot expect a vendor or your employees to be successful with your online marketing programs if you have not clearly communicated to them how you spell success.

In example: This year I expect to grow my sales by 20% over last year.  Okay, that is a tangible number. But are you going to do that in sales dollars or in customer numbers? Because on paper the difference between one and the other can be hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Even more, if you do not know where you have been, how can you expect to get somewhere? How will you achieve the sale increase from the goal you set. Do you believe your sales will come from past customers increasing their purchases or from new customers making a first purchase? What do those customers have in common? What measurement will you use to determine if your vendor or employee has reached that sales goal?

If you are like a lot of business owners or Associations, you have just taken a look at your last year’s cumulative numbers as you get them ready for your tax year 2012. You have seen sales but have you seen where they came from? If you have an Association did you see membership grow? Where is your next customer coming from? Since you are ready to evaluate your marketing plan and achieve more in 2013, here are some steps to take to get where you want to go:

1) I have put together a great worksheet for you to use to get the big picture you need on how to set and achieve your marketing goals for 2013. You may have a much more sophisticated spreadsheet that your company already uses. Still I would suggest that you simplify the numbers to my worksheet so you can see the birdseye view. This will also help you to simplify the goals to your staff.

2) Know your numbers. Before you get in the car, you typically know where you are leaving from (so you can get back there or have a reference for where you are going). It is the same for marketing. If you know your numbers (website visitors, facebook fans, linkedin network, twitter followers and email respondents) on a monthly and annual basis, you are more likely to achieve more and clearly communicate success to those working on your program. If you are not sure where to start on this, read my blog or attend my next “Is Your Social Media & Online Marketing Paying Off Laptop” Bootcamp to learn how to measure the important indicators yourself. There is one on 6/15 in Mission Viejo.

3) Don’t treat investments in Social Media and Online Marketing any different from traditional marketing. If you go to a show or spend money sending out a direct mail piece you need to include all the costs associated with the results to the cost of that medium. If you have a secretary or a cousin doing your social media or online advertising keywords, simply add up all their hours and multiply it by the cost of employing them and then compare it to the goals and results in order to see if it makes sense to hire someone else to do the job or if the person doing that job at your company is making progress. Do they need more time to do an even better job?  You can’t direct it if you don’t know the facts.

4) Add networking to your growth plan. Keep in mind that with most companies, the growth takes place faster if the company has started strategic partnerships with others looking for the same target market. What are those relationships you can grow in 2013? What is your plan to spread the word about your social media, website, services and products with those partners?

5) How are you reaching potential and existing customers/donors/contacts 7-9 times in a reasonable period of time? We used to say that you needed to expose potential consumers to your message 3 times to overcome the hurdle of trust. Today that number is 7-9 times. So if you do a monthly newsletter only, that exposure will take you 7-9 months. That is too long, by the time they see you again, they will have forgotten you. Instead, make a calendar of how you are touching that potential and existing customer 7-9 times in the next two months. Integrate social & online media with your traditional media to achieve that goal.

If you need help determining where your company is at, I can help by providing you with a white paper on the positives and negatives of your online efforts. If you want to learn to measure those results yourself, register for my Analytics Workshop with SCORE on Saturday, 6/15 in Mission Viejo. If you cannot make that event, contact our office (310) 791-6300 and see what class or service we can provide in case we can set you up with a private or semi-private class to help you get on track for achieving and exceeding your 2013 marketing goals.

Liz Harsch, has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, The City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company, visit tailormadeadvertsing.com. To schedule her as a speaker for your organization, association or department, send her an email at tmademkt@verizon.net.

Will The Fiscal Cliff Tax Deal Affect Your Business?

Are you clear or whether or not the new tax legislation will affect your sales? As a marketer, we need to keep an eye on what changes in government can do to our potential sales in 2013 and beyond. As I searched for a layman’s termed explanation of what we got and gave up with the negotiated legislation, I found the following explanation to be concise and simple. Review the information yourself and be aware if your target market is negatively affected.. If so, consider providing a promotion or some recognition that you are aware their costs have gone up and as their supplier, you want to help provide them with more value. While many people feel that the upper middle class and wealthy are not sensitive to price increases, taxes sting, and this one in particular can feel like class warfare. Consider how you would feel if your income tax went up to almost 40% of your income, while everyone else got a break. If upper class spending is reduced to help make up for the increase, it can affect your business, so help take the bite out the new legislation if you can cater to that market.

Tax Rates
For most individuals, the legislation permanently extends the lower federal income tax rates that have existed for the last decade. That means most taxpayers will continue to pay tax according to the same six tax brackets (10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 35%) that applied for 2012. The top federal income tax rate, however, will increase to 39.6% beginning in 2013 for individuals with income that exceeds $400,000 ($450,000 for married couples filing joint returns).

Capital Gains
Generally, lower tax rates that applied to long-term capital gain and qualifying dividends have been permanently extended for most individuals as well. If you’re in the 10% or 15% marginal income tax bracket, a special 0% rate generally applies. If you are in the 25%, 28%, 33%, or 35% tax brackets, a 15% maximum rate will generally apply. Beginning in 2013, however, those who pay tax at the higher 39.6% federal income tax rate (i.e., individuals with income that exceeds $400,000, or married couples filing jointly with income that exceeds $450,000) will be subject to a maximum rate of 20% for long-term capital gain and qualifying dividends.

Alternative minimum tax (AMT)
The AMT is essentially a parallel federal income tax system with its own rates and rules. The last temporary AMT “patch” expired at the end of 2011, threatening to dramatically increase the number of individuals subject to the AMT for 2012. The American Taxpayer Relief Act permanently extends AMT relief, retroactively increasing the AMT exemption amounts for 2012, and providing that the exemption amounts will be indexed for inflation in future years. The Act also permanently extends provisions that allowed nonrefundable personal income tax credits to be used to offset AMT liability.

2012 AMT Exemption Amounts
Before Act    After Act
Married filing jointly    $45,000    $78,750
Unmarried individuals    $33,750    $50,600
Married filing separately    $22,500    $39,375

Estate Tax
The Act makes permanent the $5 million exemption amounts (indexed for inflation) for the estate tax, the gift tax, and the generation-skipping transfer tax–the same exemptions that were in effect for 2011 and 2012. The top tax rate, however, is increased to 40% (up from 35%) beginning in 2013.

The Act also permanently extends the “portability” provision in effect for 2011 and 2012 that allows the executor of a deceased individual’s estate to transfer any unused exemption amount to the individual’s surviving spouse.

Phaseout or limitation of itemized deductions and personal exemptions
In the past, itemized deductions and personal and dependency exemptions were phased out or limited for high-income individuals. Since 2010, neither itemized deductions nor personal and dependency exemptions have been subject to phaseout or limitation based on income, but those provisions expired at the end of 2012.

The new legislation provides that, beginning in 2013, personal and dependency exemptions will be phased out for those with incomes exceeding specified income thresholds. Similarly, itemized deductions will be limited. For both the personal and dependency exemptions phaseout and the itemized deduction limitation, the threshold is $250,000 for single individuals ($300,000 for married individuals filing joint federal income tax returns).

Other expiring or expired provisions made permanent

• “Marriage penalty” relief in the form of an increased standard deduction amount for married couples and expanded 15% federal income tax bracket
• Expanded tax credit provisions relating to the dependent care tax credit, the adoption tax credit, and the child tax credit
• Higher limits and more generous rules of application relating to certain education provisions, including Coverdell education savings accounts, employer-provided education assistance, and the student loan interest deduction
• Temporary extensions
• Provisions relating to increased earned income tax credit amounts for families with three or more children are extended through 2017
• American Opportunity credit provisions relating to maximum credit amount, refundability, and phaseout limits are extended through 2017
• The $250 above-the-line tax deduction for educator classroom expenses, the limited ability to deduct mortgage insurance premiums as qualified residence interest, the ability to deduct state and local sales tax in lieu of the itemized deduction for state and local income tax, and the deduction for qualified higher education expenses are all extended through 2013
• Charitable IRA distributions (IRA holders over age 70½ are able to exclude from income up to $100,000 in qualified distributions made to charitable organizations) are extended through 2013; special rules apply for the 2012 tax year
• Exclusion of qualified mortgage debt forgiveness from income provisions extended through 2013
• Exclusion of 100% of the capital gain from the sale of qualified small business stock extended to apply to stock acquired before January 1, 2014
• 50% bonus depreciation and expanded Section 179 expense limits extended through 2013

Liz Harsch, has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, the City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company and services or to learn about her FREE Workshops and Paid laptop bootcamps like facebook , twitter, linkedin and analytics, visit tailormadeadvertsing.com. To schedule her as a speaker for your organization, association or department, email her to request a date at tmade.mkt@verizon.net. You can also call erh Torrance office at 310-791-6300.

How To Update Your Twitter Profile-New Format

Have you updated your Twitter page Profile? Now you can brand it better with a larger format similar to facebook.  If you are ready to pump up your image in Twitter, just follow these steps:

Step 1 – Know the Layout Specification

• Custom header images should be sized to 1252×626, and will be resized by Twitter.

• Your profile picture, or avatar, will be placed close to the top in the middle of your custom header, so make sure there is no important information there.

• Your profile information, for example, your name, location, and URL, will be placed on the header under your profile image.

Step 2 – Update Your Profile

• Log in to Twitter.

Step 3 –Select Settings Icon From The Menu On the Right Top

Select Settings from the menu

Step 4 – Select Profile From the Settings Pull Down Menu (see right)

Select Profile

Step 5 – Changing for Your Profile Page (see below)

• Select Profile from the menu

• Click “change header” to upload your own header. When uploading notice that you can click and drag it to position but you must design it to leave space in the center of the image for your posting profile and description to be dropped in and the copy will be readable. Don’t be afraid to try a couple of times since you can save over it if you don’t like the look.

Change your images here

• Looking down a little, you can see the option to upload a new custom background, or choose a color. You also have the option to change the link colors.  Make sure your new pattern or color is not distracting from your new profile photo.

• To Change your background colors or design a new background, refer to the Settings menu and select Design.  Looking down a little, you can see the option to upload a new custom background, or choose a color. You also have the option to change the link colors.  Make sure your new pattern or color is not distracting from your new profile photo.

• When you are finished remember to hit “save changes!”

Now your new header is consistent with your facebook, Google+ and your website. Try to make all of your branding consistent so you will be able to capture a mind share from prospective buyers as well as reinforce your brand with your content throughout the Internet. Enjoy your new design. Please post your new profiles on my facebook page so we can show them off.

Liz Harsch, has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, the City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company and to learn about her FREE Workshops and Paid laptop bootcamps like facebook (next one 11/14 in Torrance), twitter, linkedin and analytics, visit tailormadeadvertsing.com. To schedule her as a speaker for your organization, association or department, email her to request a date at tmade.mkt@verizon.net.

How can you achieve your online marketing goals with measurement?

I am often told the same sad story over and over by business owners who have hired someone internally or used an outside vendor to do their SEO, Website, Social Media or Adwords campaigns and paid them monthly to get the job done. After several months, they could not tell if their online efforts had made a difference. Do you notice anything wrong with this picture?

Are you getting your money’s worth from online marketing?

Most small business owners can tell you the benefit of all their investments and typically stop any that are not profitable as soon as possible. I rarely find small business owners paying for a service without asking for some concrete results in return. However I find key communication steps are not taken when it comes to online marketing purchases. This is probably due to a feeling that the business owner or manager is out of their area of expertise.

In my Social Measurement Laptop Workshop for business owners, I suggest that online marketing should begin with setting the goals that the program is supposed to meet and establishing how to measure the campaigns success. Most of us watch our outgoing expenses very carefully and hold our vendors accountable — particularly during the recession. However I still find that many companies skip this step when it comes to online and social media efforts. If that is you, our next Laptop Workshop will save you time and money.

Just like any other marketing investment, you can validate the work of online marketing vendors. You simply need to learn how to set goals and measure their results using FREE online tools that are already available to you. It starts with asking the question “What action do I want my target market to take that would benefit my company the most?” Then the social media program should be set up in order to maximize that outcome.

The real problem is lack of communication by the business owner to set clear goals and let the vendor or staff know what is expected of them. In addition, the vendors and staff need to know they will be held accountable to show how they met those goals or communicated to the management why the goals are not achievable. The absence of these conversations often leads to investment failure which could have been avoided by using some FREE online measurement tools.

Here are a few examples of the tools I teach business owners to use in a laptop workshop I designed to help business owners and managers take control of their social media results.

Let’s start with Facebook. Did you know that you can easily measure the numbers, sex, age, location, frequency and language of your fans. In addition you can see what posts you made that caused them to act or share your posts and which posts resulted in no action at all.

When it comes to your website and SEO, the best source of accurate information is using Google Analytics, a FREE application that can be used once your website is tagged with a piece of programming (provided by Google for free) on each page. You an use Google Analytics to measure a wealth of information right down to how your website or blog are being used including: unique users, pages viewed, time on the site, which keywords led visitors to your site, referral websites and much more.

Twitter can be measured using several tools from monitoring sites like Twitalyzer to Klout, Hootsuite and many other free tools depending on how you manage your online media.

Take control of your online results so you can measure the results of your Social Media and Website investments, join us for a SCORE (SBA) Laptop Bootcamp in Torrance on 9/19. I will be teaching business owners like yourself more about how to measure your online efforts and set goals for your staff or vendors in order to get more from your investments starting now. Workshop presenter, Liz Harsch, has been helping small and medium sized businesses make the most of their marketing investments since 1988. Her company, Tailor-Made Advertising is an Authorized SCORE workshop presenter and an awarded Constant Contact Email Marketer and Authorized Local Expert presenting Workshops for Constant Contact, SCORE, SBDC, Metropolitan Water District, multiple Chambers of Commerce, The City of Los Angeles and other Organizations. For more information about her company, visit tailormadeadvertsing.com. To schedule her as a speaker for your organization, association or department, send her an email at tmademkt@verizon.net.

Is Your Social Media Paying Off? Learn How To Measure Results.

Here is the fact, Social Media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Email, & Online Marketing) costs you, whether it is your time, a staffer or an outside vendor— therefore it costs you money that could be spent more efficiently on other marketing tools. So why are so few business owners aware of their results when it comes to social media investments?

There are FREE tools online to analyze your company’s Social Media results and compare them to the actions taken. In fact, there are built in measuring tools in most social media platforms plus Google Analytics (another FREE measurement tool) to help you get this done. Here are a few tips on what you need to measure:

1) As a business you will want to know your average Unique Website Visitors on a monthly and even weekly basis (or more if you do hefty online sales).

2) Regarding Facebook, you will want to look at what your fans look like and compare fan growth and demographics with your target market as well as past history.

3) On LinkedIn, examine your network and the groups you are involved in and look at their statistics as well as the contacts you have that

are in connection with other firms you want to do business with.

4) On Twitter you will want to check out the folks that are following you and how your follower ratio is going as well as determining if your target market is responding to the posts.

5) On email look at your open rate and your click-through rate and then analyze your lists and email results based on history, time of day sent and what actions took place on your emails in the past. Then do more of what works and evaluate the actions taken.

If you are still not sure where to start, join me at my SCORE sponsored Workshop on Analytics August 18th ($139) at National University in Costa Mesa. We will review how to do this and will be filling in a spreadsheet to help you evaluate the results of the Social Media you or one of your Vendors is delivering. The numbers will put you in the drivers seat and help you direct your Social Media efforts just like any other marketing purchase, with an eye on ROI (Return On Investment). Support SCORE (an arm of the SBA) and help your company track your results. Register here:http://bit.ly/MeasureYourSocial