* Use inflection in your voice (avoid sounding monotone) * Don’t use “whatever,” “yeah, right,” “if you say so”

3. Check your body language Make sure your body language is saying to customer, “I want to help you.” Make sure you are doing following:

* Smile * Stand erect * Hands at your side, but never on your hips * Avoid leaning against counter or slouching in chair (especially while speaking on telephone as customer can hear your disinterest) * Look and act alive

4. Show Empathy (Understand Pain) Show customers that you understand their “pain.” Make comments such as

“I can understand why you would feel that way.” “If I were in your shoes I would feel same way” “I would be disappointed, too, if that happened to me.”

Most customers just want to be listened to and understood. Show them that you understand their “pain” and solution come much earlier.

5. Commit to Action Let customer know that action will be taken; and then act. One without other is just a broken promise. Share with customer your clear plan of action such as following:

“I am personally going to take care of this for you. What we are going to do is…”

“I need to get additional information before I take care of this for you. I am going to talk with my manager. Would you mind waiting?”

These are just some of tools you can use to keep your customers happy and increase revenues. Apply them today to show that you care about your customers.

6. Putting your ad in wrong category If you are a plumber, decision of where to place your ad is easy. But if your business is in a fairly specialised market such as oil refinery plumbing, there probably isn’t a good category for you. In fact, for many B2B businesses Yellow Pages is a poor marketing tool. Ask yourself question, where would a buyer look to find out about your business- it might not even be in Yellow Pages.

7. Depending on old technology advertising Every year internet advertising increases, with less being spent on print advertising. Yellow Pages is now available online and for certain businesses this is a better option, particularly with a link to their website. When being sold paper Yellow Pages ads, you may be offered complimentary online advertising. However, unless your ad is near front, you will be invisible to buyers who rarely will browse further than three pages. It is also worth paying for a link to your website.

The Yellow Pages consultants are on commission to sell you advertising. They only interested in getting you to spend as much as possible, not on providing best marketing solution for your business. Advertising is not same as marketing! Good marketing advice on whether and how you should advertise is money well spent. Not only can this increase sales, but it can save you thousands of dollars in advertising.

Before making a decision on Yellow Pages advertising, you should consider all your marketing channels, and make decisions on how much you invest in each dependent on their ability to attract leads. Having determined how much you will invest in Yellow Pages, do some market analysis and invest in your ad copy. This is particularly important for larger ad sizes. Yellow Pages advertising can be rewarding, but should only be considered as just one part of your overall marketing strategy.