A good customer survey is like a vigorous massage -- you may feel beat up after reading results, because NO business serves its customers as well as it thinks it does, but results will energize you.

Side benefit A survey is a window into your clients' minds. If you include a section for them to include their comments, it's like having a free product research laboratory! LISTEN and ACT on what your customers tell you. They'll give you invaluable tips on what new products to sell, joint ventures to form, etc.

Side benefit You'll also find that clients answering your survey will often give you testimonials, which you can later use on your Web site. As you probably know, testimonials are an incredibly effective way to boost credibility and sales.

I've accumulated five or six pages of them over years (I stopped counting) and prospects continually tell me that my testimonials were a deciding factor in why they chose to buy from me.

3. Introduce them to non-competitors' products What if customers won't need your product/service again for a long time, if ever? If you haven't done so already, set up affiliate deals from other Web sites that offer items related to your own.

My business offers a perfect example. Buying a resume is a lot like visiting dentist -- it's not something people look forward to, and they likely won't make a repeat purchase for 6-12 months … or longer.

To overcome this, I email my clients information about career-related Web sites where they can register for job search services, buy books and audio tapes, refer jobs to friends, etc.

Each of these sites has an affiliate program that pays me $1 to $5 every time people register or buy. It all adds up to hundreds of dollars in monthly revenue that would have been left on table had I not introduced my customers to these other sites.

Need ideas on what kinds of products or services to offer your customers? You can search for an affiliate program that's right for your customers at one of these sites - www.associateprograms.com/ or www.refer-it.com/

Best of luck to you!

Kevin Donlin has been selling online since 1995. This article is an excerpt from "How to Double Your Small Business Sales in 20 Minutes a Day With Follow-up Marketing", a new manual that does just what the title says. Guaranteed. To learn more, visit http://www.guaranteedmarketing.com/manual

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