Our Monmouth Blog

There are so many tools today to enhance your business presence. There is print advertising in magazines and trade journals. There are the multitudes of areas regarding your internet presence, which of course, can skyrocket your customer base if you know what you’re doing, or it can drain your wallet while catapulting your competition beyond your reach.
Whatever service-related business you are in, if you are dealing directly with the public, I’ll tell you, hands down, the biggest mistake that business owners make is client follow-up. I see it constantly in almost all types of businesses. Client follow-up is the most underrated, and by far, the worst executed part of the whole business process that prevents a company from reaching its full potential. After all, is business so good for you that you can afford to casually wait to respond to a request?
Case and point. You advertise on the internet, and you receive leads from some industry-specific lead program. Let’s say you get 5 leads per week from that source. Chances are, in our very hectic NJ environment, the client is just as busy as you are. In their quest to find the best service professional, he or she will try to choose the best whatever (contractor, paperhanger, website builder, and wedding singer) in the shortest time-frame. The service professional who returns the client’s call first, many times, good or bad, may be the beneficiary to that new client. That’s follow-up.
Another case and point. If you answer a request or respond to a lead, many business owners think that the potential client will (or should) return his or her call immediately if truly interested. Not so! The fact is that your potential client is so darn busy with his daily critical tasks; yours may be #12 on his list of things to do. Follow-up again!
A successful service professional must follow-up at least a few times without fail. And that sometimes means more than a few times, and that 4th or 5th call-back, email, or hand-written note sometimes closes the sale. On the other hand, you also need to keep in mind that if this repeated follow-up is not done in a professional manner, it could just turn the client off and cause him to pass you up for another professional. What can I say; life (and business) is more of an art than it is a science.
I will tell you this; if you don’t follow-up early and often, someone else will, and you’ll be short-circuiting your chances for obtaining new clients and limiting your business growth potential. You live and learn the specific techniques that work for you when following-up with potential customers. Be persistent without appearing too aggressive (or obnoxious!) and keep doing and refining those follow-up techniques until they become a science (i.e., YOUR OWN personal process).
So don’t get discouraged or taken-back by a potential client’s lack of response regarding your initial follow-up to their request. Learn to expect this in our hustle and bustle NJ environment and, no matter what, follow-up religiously the same way you would want someone else to follow-up for you to earn your business. What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll get better at the process and grow your business.

New Jersey pianist Arnie Abrams has been a professional musician and performer for over 20 years. He has provided live music for countless clients for their weddings, parties and corporate affairs throughout New Jersey, metro New York and Philadelphia.

A virtual assistant (VA) provides administrative assistance to her/his clients. In essence a virtual assistant provides the same support that an administrative or executive assistant does. However, the service is provided at the virtual assistant’s office using the technology of the internet, email, and other collaborative tools instead of a standard business office environment.

A virtual assistant is a business owner and is not an employee. She/he is an independent contractor that partners with clients. Clients sign an agreement with the virtual assistant and, more importantly, the client is not responsible for any employee-related benefits because this is a partner-to-partner not an employer-to-employee relationship.

A business owner that is overwhelmed by the day-to-day administrative tasks at some point will realize that they can not do it all. At this time, the business owner makes the decision to free herself/himself of these tasks so they can redirect their time and energy to marketing and selling their product and/or service.

When this decision is made, they can look to a virtual assistant to take on a variety of responsibilities. The business owner will benefit from this arrangement because the virtual assistant will take on these responsibilities without the added cost of employee-related benefits. The business owner will pay for the time-on task.

Virtual assistant services are board and the services range from: Correspondence, Data Entry, Word Processing, Report Generation, Email Management, Web Research, Web Design, System Administration, Document Scanning, Transcription Services, Proof Reading, Desktop Publishing, and Project Management.

Bailey Business Services, Inc. is owned and operated by Helen Bailey. Helen provides virtual assistance to her clients as their administrative partner.

Every small business should have a blog as part of its marketing plan. A business blog can have a significant impact to your web traffic and help you make connections locally that you may have otherwise missed. Blogging has other benefits such as improved search engine results and can bolster readers perception of you and your business as a leader and expert.

A potential business blogger must also keep in mind the commitment blogging takes. Are you comfortable writing for public consumption? Are you prepared to receive comments on your thoughts? Are you willing to be challenged on controversial ideas? A decision to start blogging should not be made on a whim and involves planning.

Here are some of my favorite resources to get you started:

Andy Beard - Blog Search Engine Performance, Wordpress, Niche Marketing, Affiliate Marketing Tips and Social Media
copyblogger - copywriting tips for online marketing
success
Daily Blog Tips - tips to create or improve your blog
ProBlogger - the name says it all.

Know another great blogging resource? Let me know!

Happy blogging.

comScore Releases April 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

According to the May 22nd comScore press release “April 2008 saw Americans conduct 10.6 billion core searches, with Google Sites continuing to gain market share as the leading search engine.”

The report continued:

In April, Google Sites extended its share of core searches to 61.6 percent, up from 59.8 percent the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 20.4 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.1 percent), AOL LLC (4.6 percent), and Ask Network (4.3 percent).

There is no doubt Google is the steak and the potatoes in the search industry. If you are serious about improving your Internet marketing ability you need to strongly consider how you can improve your Google search results. Search Engine Marketing should be a part of any businesses marketing plan. Local businesses can make their mark in search if there is a focused effort.

I take great pride in providing top notch customer service for all of our members on a daily basis. I make it a top priority to take calls from our members, return calls, and respond to emails in a timely fashion. I enjoy the calls to check in and say hello, calls that are complimentary of our receptionists’ professionalism and polite phone manner. Calls offering constructive criticism are also appreciated because this feedback helps us to better serve our customers, creating long term business relationships. Because I enjoy doing as much as I can for our members, I often call members just to check in a make sure they are satisfied with the quality of our service.

There are also calls that make me hot. My blood pressure rises, and I dread saying “okay, put the call through”. This is because these clients call multiple times a day about issues that are out of control. Important calls are missed because clients fail to check their voicemail. Instructions on handling calls are unclear and changed so frequently that their appointments are compromised. This type of customer prevents me from providing the quality of service that I pride myself with.

Firing employees who do not perform their jobs adequately is a task I am familiar with. When is it acceptable to fire a customer? Some customers are so time consuming they prevent you from performing daily tasks. I recently had the pleasure of informing a long time member “Some people just cannot be pleased and I feel that you fall into that category, regardless of my own and our staffs efforts”. This was a liberating experience. The customer had been a member of our service for over four years. For this person to remain a customer so many years, my staff and I were doing something right.

Tim Ferriss said it best in his latest book, “customer service is not becoming a personal concierge and catering to their every whim and want. Customer service is providing a excellent product or service at an acceptable price and solving legitimate problems that may come up in the fastest manner possible. That’s it.” I think that sums it up. I encourage all business owners to fire that customer of theirs that can’t be pleased and is preventing them from giving great customer service to those that deserve and appreciate it.

Jessica Matyi is Office Manager of Intelligent Office of Red Bank

comScore Releases March 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

According to the April 15th comScore press release “March 2008 saw Americans conduct 10.8 billion core searches, representing a 9-percent increase versus February.”

The report continued:

In March, Google Sites extended its share of core searches to 59.8 percent, up from 59.2 percent the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 21.3 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.4 percent), AOL LLC (4.8 percent), and Ask Network (4.7 percent).

There is no more important mission for the online marketer than to rank well in search engine results. With the number of websites and web pages growing daily by unfathomable numbers it is critical that you not only rank in Google and Yahoo but you rank well. As a local small business owner the opportunity is to rank in your local market. For example, if you are a photographer you would want to rank for the following search terms:

Photographer
NJ photographer
Monmouth County photographer
Red Bank NJ photographer

The above search phrases are listed in order of difficulty. Google yields 92.2mm results for the term “Photographer” but only 1.8mm for the term “Red Bank NJ photographer”. While it could take years of focused effort to rank well for the search term “photographer” a local business should be able to rank well for the other above related search terms with a well executed short to medium term marketing plan.

How important is search engine rankings to your business?

Best wishes

The New York Times reported a story today by The Associated Press that “Online Sales to Grow 17 Percent in ‘08” in spite of all the current negative economic news.

NEW YORK (AP)– Online spending is expected to rise a robust 17 percent this year, despite a sluggish economy that has bruised many brick-based retailers, according to an annual survey to be released Tuesday.

Retail sales online, excluding travel purchases, are set to grow to $204 billion in 2008 from $174.5 billion last year, fueled by sales of apparel, computers and autos, according to a survey conducted by Internet analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation trade group. That projection is below the 21 percent increase seen in the prior year, but industry officials attribute it to the maturing of the business, not the sluggish economy.

If your business is not already online now is a great time to establish an online presence. Below are a few reasons why this is a good idea:

• Increased Visibility
• Being online improves your credibility and brand
• Customer convenience: 24/7 access to merchandise and information
• Increase your market place from local to global
• Customers and competition are already are online
• Minimum investment with high return on investment (ROI) potential

Find out what I am doing on Twitter.

Best Wishes!

People like to be recognized for doing something good, employees are no different. Many successful organizations distribute awards for those who go above and beyond the task at hand.

When an employee does something extra, happily, not expecting an award, it’s a perfect opportunity to “reward” them. This is not the place for time off or a pay raise, but consider lottery tickets, restaurant gift cards, movie rentals or theater tickets, CD’s or take something from your promotional closet. Employees are proud to display the company name on shirts or desk items. Make a big presentation, to encourage others to do more than is expected. Consider instituting an employee of the month program, or a mention in your company newsletter or annual event (such as a picnic or holiday party).

Get more for your money - small rewards to employees will “reward” you in the long run.

Dawn is President of Daybreak Marketing Services, a promotional marketing company.

Here is a short list of reasons why clients leave:

1. They think they are ignored, not understood, or appreciated.
2. You did not meet their expectations
3. They only hear from you on a sales call
4. They are not aware of your services and products.
5. Pricing and perceived value.
6. The client thinks they can do it better themselves.
7. Competition lured them away

When you boil it down there is one thing that can help all of these issues: communication. Effective, regular communication is the best tool in client retention. You would be amazed at what you clients will tell you if you pick up the phone just to check in and see how things are doing.

What are some of your experiences and client retention ideas?

As we begin to implement our business plans for 2008 nobody should question the value of the Internet to any business. The numbers are clear and compelling:

- 71% of all Americans (over 237,000,000 people) use the Internet on a regular basis. (Source: internetworldstats.com)
- 91% of Internet users use a search engine to find information. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking)
- 78% of Internet users research a product or service before buying it. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking)

For most businesses it is not the question of why should I have my business on the Internet but how. This can be a significant challenge given the number of options that are available in the market. Companies like Yahoo and Google would be happy to get you started and by the way so would the Yellow Pages and hundreds of other web developers and marketers. How as a business owner can you make an informed decision without investing so much time that it distracts you from your business?

It is important for anyone who is interested in taking the first step to do some homework, and there is plenty of information on the Internet. If you have a general understanding of some of the basic technology this will be very helpful as you take your first steps forward. Have a general understanding of what a Domain name and hosting is. Write down all of your questions as you explore the information. What websites that you use do you like? What don’t you like about other websites? Remember your website will be your business card to the world.

Take a look at your competition and see what they are doing on the Internet. Do they have a website? Are they doing PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising? Are they collecting eMail address and marketing via email. These are just a few basic marketing activities the Internet has to offer. Is your competition taking advantage of them?

Once you have an idea of what you would like to accomplish online and have taken a look at the competition the next important step is to determine whom to work with. How comfortable are you with the technology? Are you the type of person that needs likes handholding? Or do you want to be in control of every step? Do you want to hand the reigns over to expert? Do you want to work locally or with a large corporation? What is your budget?

Based on the answers to these questions there is a solution for every business. My advice is to speak to several companies and get proposals from all of them. Once you have the proposals in hand ask yourself the following. Do they understand your business, your clients, and market place? Do they have a track record of success? Are they accessible if there is an issue? Do they have references? Will you be an account number or a valued client? Now your ready to make a decision.

The Internet can be a catalyst to bring any business to the next level and beyond. No matter what choices your make, now is the time to put it together and make it happen in 2008.

Wishing you success.

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Paul R. Greenblatt, CPA - Professional Tax & Accounting Services in Monmouth County New Jersey.