You don’t ask them any questions.  You might record their telephone number.  And, worst case scenario you lose the scrap of paper containing their details over the coming weeks.

Whatever the reason (or excuse) you don’t follow-up.

What if they haven’t received the brochure (trust me, it happens on a frighteningly regular basis)?  What if they’re interested and are waiting for you to call?

It isn’t the customers job to remember to do business with you – it’s your job

Most customers take on average seven points of contact before they buy.  And most sales people give up at 5 points.  What’s even more scary is the number of businesses who don’t follow-up at all – despite the fact that it’s free marketing!

So what is best practice with follow-ups and how can you really make the most of incoming enquiries?  Here are our top 5 tips (most of which are free or cheap to implement and could be done very quickly):

1. If a customer calls, have a script to follow and find out as much information as you can
2. Gain permission to follow that person up and ensure they received the information they wanted
3. Answer enquiries promptly – be available by phone and email and respond where possible within 24 hours
4. Record all the information you take in a database (ideally customer relationship management – CRM – software)
5. Diary a follow-up and stick to it (and then diary another)

If people take time out of their busy lives to enquire about your product, they’re paying you a huge compliment.  The least you can do is treat that compliment with respect and try to help the customer towards a solution.

Allotinabox have taken advantage of the trend and introduced ‘Grow Your Own’ boxes so city dwellers can join in.  For just £50 you receive seasonal boxes are filled with organic seeds and a kit for growing the vegetables which contains details of how and when to harvest them.  Visit http://www.allotinabox.com/grow-your-own/for more details.

The National Trust has taken things a step further, with the launch of MyFarm which aims to reconnect people with food.  Using crowd sourcing techniques, they’re recruiting 10,000 would-be farmers and giving them a say in the running of a 2500-acre farm in Cambridgeshire.  For just £30 a year, the group works together and votes on major decisions on the farm.  Have a look at http://www.my-farm.org.uk/ home for details.

It’s a trend that looks set to continue into 2012 – is there some way you can take advantage?

Sites such as Groupon and Living Social have sprung up seemingly overnight.  Voucher Codes offers discount codes for everyday items, such as shopping, meals out and clothes.  Martin Lewis’ money saving expert site is also full of discounts and deals – and they’re proving more popular than ever.

It’s very easy to think of joining the bandwagon and adding your deals to these sites, but how can you do so profitably?  Here are our top tips from our experience and that of our customers:

1. Ensure you’re making a profit.  The number of people we’ve met who have created deals that lose them money is frightening.  Deals are not about no profit.  They are about great deals that attract new customers and make you a good return.  Look at added-value, rather than discounts.  And if you can’t make money, don’t offer the deal.
2. Try to use a site that will help you reach new customers.  If you can attract new people to your business, it could be worth a reduction in profits on their first visit.
3. To achieve a long-term growth in business and profitability, you must keep a database of these new customers and then market to them directly.  With hotels and restaurants, you save approx. 20% commission if people book directly, so encourage as many as you can back to stay with direct offers.
4. Ask for reviews.  One hotel that we work with has been rushed off their feet with Groupon deals and it’s been really hard work.  But the reviews they’ve received on Trip Advisor (and the database they’ve built up) has been worth slightly lower profits on these first visits.
5. You must impress the people who use the vouchers.  If you’re happy to take a smaller profit margin on the first visit and see this as a marketing expense for finding new customers, you must generate a profit at a later date.  If they are impressed, they’re likely to return… and they might recommend you to friends as well.

To see what might be next for the Daily Deal sites, look at http://www.thinknear.com/main_pages/how_it_works

It’s all very exciting!

The ads will use a ‘sex sells’ strategy to see if advertising triggers primate responses in the monkeys.  They’re keeping it simple – a billboard shows a graphic shot of a female monkey – Well… if it works on humans!

Yale University research shows that monkeys understand money and behave in similar ways to humans when faced with decisions in games, so the results should be fascinating.  If you’re as fascinated as I was, you can read more at http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-06/28/advertising-campaign-aimed-at-monkeys

I don’t know about you, but it’s a rare day when I find a car salesman I like and really want to do business with – perhaps it’s no surprise he was so successful.

Apparently Joe sent cards every month to his customers with a simple ‘I Like You’ on the front and a relevant greeting inside.  His customers received twelve cards each year reminding them how much Joe liked them.  He had thousands of customers (making the postage costs significant,) but the resulting sales were more than worth the effort.

Joe is now a sales speaker and has his own website.  You can read his top tips at http://www.joegirard.com/13-Rules-To-Success.html.

Good luck putting them into practice.  They are very simple… and very effective.

Likewise; the majority of small business owners run their business in an ethical way.  Perhaps because they rely on local business, they are wise not to upset anyone who might damage their reputation or stop shopping with them.

But interesting things happens when the economy gets tight. And it’s been fascinating to watch.

For many businesses, times have been quite tough in recent months. And they’ve had to chase business more than usual.  As a result, many have increased their sales efforts and reduced their costs.  But some have taken it a step further and started using marketing techniques and business practices that are less than ethical.

Examples we’ve heard of include:

• Taking on business that is outside your specialist area (when you’d be better turning it down)
• Poaching staff
• Promoting yourself on dodgy websites
• Making unproven claims
• Buying reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor
• Spamming your database out of desparation
• Buying followers

These practices have always happened in the marketing industry, but they are increasingly common in recent times.  It’s my belief that those who hold true to their ethics (and can sleep soundly at night) will prosper and come out of recession the fastest.

After all – the measure of a man isn’t found when things are going well.  It’s found in the actions they take when things are going badly.

You’re probably reading this and thinking ‘who would be so stupid?’! But you would be amazed at the number of businesses I come across who operate their company this way.  Usually because of one of two reasons:

a. They don’t know their numbers

b. They don’t calculate their time

When it comes to ethical marketing, I believe this is one of the most crucial items a marketer need to understand about your business.  (There are many consultants who won’t ask the figures because that holds them accountable and some believe marketing is more ‘art’ than ‘science’.  I’m afraid I disagree.)

Perhaps I can illustrate with a story:

When we were visiting the Pyramids in Egypt, we were warned about the local traders at the site who constantly try to ‘rip off’ the tourists.  The Egyptian who told us this said that whilst he loved his countrymen, the people who worked the Pyramids were a different breed and would happily take tourists’ money by whatever means they could.  So, he told us to barter – and to barter hard – if we did want to buy their wares.  He informed us that no trader would sell an item if they weren’t going to make any money – they simply wouldn’t do it.  They would lose the sale – and keep the potential profit for the next tourist.

What a great lesson – they wouldn’t make the sale if they were going to lose money.  They knew their break-even – the minimum they could accept and still walk away with profit.  I wish we could learn from these traders and all know these figures for our businesses – there would be far fewer business closures with just this simple piece of data.

Like I said…the holy grail.

But some of us take those relationships for granted… at our peril.

Take an example a friend shared with me last night – she met an insurance broker a few years ago whom she liked and their company now looks after all of her business.  She has never in that time shopped around for insurance, or used comparison sites.  A few months ago, she was due for renewal and at the same time, she realised it was the broker’s daughter’s birthday.  So she sent a personal email wishing her Happy Birthday and mentioning her renewal needs, but she didn’t receive a reply.  Her renewal papers came from someone she didn’t know.  And now she’s considering shopping around.

There could be a really great reason the email wasn’t answered – the broker could have been away / ill / might have left the company / it may have been answered by another member of staff who didn’t realise the depth of the relationship.  But whatever the reason, the relationship has been damaged.  And it’s been proven that 67% of customers leave because of ‘perceived indifference’ – they think we don’t care.

According to a report ‘Loyalty: A prescription for cutting costs’ by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company, in the financial services sector a 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit.

It’s time we realised that people think they’re important – and they are.  We need to treat all of our customers,  introducers and suppliers as individuals and respond to them and their family in a way that shows we care and that we’re grateful for their business.  It’s hard work – of course – but it’s easier than continually finding new customers!

According to research, the 12 top reasons for business failure in 2009 were:

1. Failure to focus on a specific market because of poor research
2. Failure to control cash (by carrying too much stock, paying suppliers too quickly or allowing customers too long to pay)
3. Failure to ruthlessly control costs
4. Not adapting your product to meet clients needs
5. Failing to carry out decent market research
6. Not building a team that has the skills to finance, produce, sell and market
7. Failing to pay taxes
8. Failure to grow – businesses that attempted stability or didn’t try to grow didn’t survive
9. Failing to gain new markets
10. Under-capitalisation
11. Cashflow problems (growing too quickly)
12. Non-payment by customers

The great news is that most of these things are in your direct control – master these twelve elements and you are on your way to success.

Set up by a dairy farmer in 1970, the festival started as a harvest festival and fair.  In the first year 1500 people attended and paid £1 to see Marc Bolan and T-Rex.  The ticket price even included some milk from the farm (according to the official website – http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/history/).

Last year, the event celebrated its 40th anniversary.  135,000 people attended and they paid £185 a ticket.  That’s quite a difference in 40 years!  And, crucially, the growth has been driven by the customers…

Founder, Michael Eavis, has tried to end the festival several times, but the customers kept on turning up.  And it was the customers that seem to have driven the festival into profitability.  Despite himself, Mr Eavis created something people really wanted – and were willing to pay for.  That’s the secret of great marketing – and the rest is history!