Posts Tagged ‘Customers’

The Wall Street Journal:

For small businesses looking for advice, the Internet provides an ideal consultant: the consumer.

All sorts of start-ups and small companies are using the Internet to involve customers in decisions on everything from what to sell, how products look and work, how much they cost, and even how the company operates, like what hours a store should be open or how its floor space should be laid out.

For business owners who are short on cash and have little margin for error, there are two big advantages to using consumers as advisers: They’re cheaper than the professional consultants that bigger companies routinely employ. And the end result is likely to appeal to customers because they were involved in creating it, says Ken Zolot, a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., nonprofit that promotes entrepreneurship.

“Your customers might be better at designing your product than your elite team of product designers, who might be hiding in an ivory tower somewhere,” says Mr. Zolot. Consumers often will provide input out of sheer passion or in return for the chance to win cash prizes or other incentives, he adds.

This approach can have drawbacks, entrepreneurship experts say. There’s the risk that the crowd that provides input isn’t representative of the people who might buy the product later on. And innovation may suffer.

Photo by vierdrie.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Anonymous Account

The fact is, referrals can generate much more new business than most companies realize. Yet you can’t just sit back and wait for your current customers or clients to send new business to you. You need a plan. Here’s a simple three-step process for generating more business to increase revenue through referrals.

First thing first, sit down with a pad of paper and a pen and start thinking of people that you already know who may be able to bring some business your way. Then ask for one referral from each person on that contact list.

When the referrals you asked for start coming in, rather than handing the list to someone else to deal with, take care of them personally. After all YOU are the one who asked for their business which means you are probably the name they were given and referred to.

These new referrals have the potential to become long term clients of yours if you play your cards right. So don’t get after them like gang busters as this will push them away. Follow-up with them diligently and professionally but not aggressively as if your a lion waiting to pounce on them, as suggested on Biz Unite.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Rhonda Abrams, USA TODAY:

In virtually every business, the first customer is the hardest to land. While the Starship Enterprise may go “where no one else has gone before,” customers follow where others lead.

If you’re a consultant, prospects want to know who your other clients have been. If you’re a dentist, you’re going to get most of your patients from previously satisfied patients. And no one wants to go to a completely empty restaurant.

Whether you’re serving consumers or other business, you’ve got to have a track record for prospective clients or customers to feel comfortable. What a dilemma: you have to have customers to get customers.

But how do you get the first customers?

1. Give your product or service away.

2. Offer deep discounts.

3. Ask your competitors for their excess work.

4. Ask your former employer if you can work for them.

5. Use community and social networking sites.

Photo by jan-willem.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.