At a recent seminar, I asked my audience to stand if they watched or listened to the news in the morning.  About 90% of the room stood up.  I asked them to sit down if they felt motivated after they’d watched the news…and only a couple sat down (which I think might have been fatigue, rather than honesty).

The fact is that the news is depressing.  Especially at the moment.  And it provides you with an excuse if your business isn’t performing as well as you might hope.

I listened to a customer this week tell me how ‘sad’ it is ‘out there’ at the moment and how everyone seems to be suffering in business.  But, on the flip side, a property developer we work with has just received three reservation forms for new build properties in the past four weeks – and they only have 8 properties to sell.

The business is there.  Whatever the news and the media would like to tell you.  It may be that you have to fight harder for it at the moment, but customers are spending money.  The question is whether they’re spending it with you.

My advice…

• Stop watching the news before work and read something motivational instead
• Start your day with your marketing actions
• Do some sales and marketing activity every single day
• Think positive – you’ll be amazed at the results.

Sounds simple?  You’ve got nothing to lose, so why not try it and let me know the results?

And it seems even the world of football is following this trend and tapping into the power of their customers…

I recently read about Murcielagos FC in Mexico; a team which is managed by the crowd who make decisions about strategy, substitutions and best players.  The team talk is made public and fans can vote on whether they agree with it.

The team is apparently performing very well…http://abiteof.com/2011/03/17/who-needs-a-trainer-when-you-have-a-crowd/

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!

If this is your situation, or you know someone in that position, please pass on some marketing tips that will help them get the cashflow moving again:

1. Chase every debt.  This is money in the bank; it just often isn’t in yours.  People think debt recovery falls into admin rather than marketing, but this is easy income and every debt should be chased in a systematic way.  Speaking to people about the money they owe is also another opportunity to find out what needs they have that you may be able to solve.
2. Keep in touch with past clients.  All too often, we spend time looking for new customers and forget about the people who already know, like and trust us – those who have bought before.  By keeping in touch, you remind them you exist and what you can offer.  (Just this week I had a client come back after 5 years, so it’s never too late.)
3. Listen – ask customers, prospects and contacts what they need.  What challenges do they have and how can you solve them?  Listen first, ask questions and propose your solution afterwards.  You’re more likely to solve their problem that way – and they’re more likely to buy.
4. Stay positive.  It’s increasingly difficult to ignore the news, but ignore it you must.  People are spending money.  The question is whether they’re spending it with you.  Your mindset is a large part of whether you succeed or not, so monitor your thoughts and keep them positive.  (This sounds fluffy, but you wouldn’t believe the power of it.)
5. Ask for the sale.  Make the calls. Get active.  Take massive action if you need massive results.  You are the route out of your situation, so set a target and then enjoy smashing it.

Times are changing.  And they’ve been changing for millennia.  It’s the only constant.  As someone famously once said – you can make money, or you can make excuses, but you can’t make both.

I wish you success and I offer my assistance if you need it.

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.

What top three things could you do (for free) every day to boost your profits pre-Christmas?

1. Call five existing customers and ensure they have everything they need for this quarter / ask whether they need any help with other items you provide
2. Call five past customers and remind them you exist.  Perhaps tell them about your autumn special offers and incentives
3. Make contact with five prospects and give them a special offer if they buy before Christmas

If you did this every day to Christmas, you’d make contact with 1200 people who already know, like and/or trust you – in other words, the people most likely to buy from you.

I’d love to hear your results – if you stick to the plan, I’m certain your tills will be ringing into the New Year.

Good luck!

In addition, combined with the internet, the recession has reduced advertising spend in traditional media, making it more difficult for them to conduct business.  (Just look at the number of local papers that have closed since the beginning of the credit crunch.)

There’s no doubt that things are changing.  And I have no doubt the newspaper industry will survive.  In the same way it had to adapt to the invention of radio and then television, it will cope.  But it will need to adapt (as all businesses do) to the changing economy and business environment.

That aside, I wonder what the customers of the News of the World ‘establishment’ must have thought when they heard it was being closed?  And I wish they’d let it play out from a marketing point of view – wouldn’t it have been interesting to see whether their readers voted with their feet and stopped buying it.  Or whether they continued to purchase a paper which was the favourite of many.

Don’t get me wrong – I was appalled and disgusted by the headlines.  But I wasn’t a customer.  And I’m fascinated to know what their customers think and whether they would have changed their habits in volume.  After all – they say any news is good news!

I also wonder what will happen next.  Will there be a swing away from newspapers; forcing them to clean up their act?  (Consumer power is stronger than ever and there are now free alternatives for obtaining your news.)  Or will people continue buying newspapers just as they did before the headlines broke?  Either way, it will be very interesting to watch from the sidelines.

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!

We recently went to buy a toilet (I know, the glamour of my world!) for our new campervan.  It had to be a specific size, which meant it would be more expensive than the more popular sizes.  Having made our choice, we weren’t expecting the lady on the check out to remark ‘oooh. These are really expensive’ and then look at us with a questioning expression, wondering if we still wanted to buy it.

We explained that this was the only option in the size that we needed, so we had little choice and were happy to proceed.  She then checked the price and told us it would be £72 and asked whether that would be OK.  Double-checking again that we were happy to pay the price.  (Since the price ticket on the loo was £78, we were quite happy to pay £72, but that’s another issue!)

The product is beside the point (although Dometic – if you’re reading this, please give me a shout.  You have some training to do for your retailers).  The question is whether your sales team are sending the right messages about your price.  Do they say ‘the great news is it’s only £…’ or do they think the product is expensive – and give that message, whether physically or verbally to your customers?

James Dyson came across such an example when he did a mystery shop for his company and the sales rep tried to sell him an alternative brand as it was “stronger and more durable than a Dyson”.  (Can you imagine??!!)  He came up with a great response – but you’ll have to read his book to find out what it was.

If you’re sending the message that your products are expensive (particularly in the current climate) you are losing sales… can you afford not to train your staff??