Business: Tapping The Potential Of Your Customers

Tapping The Potential Of Your Customers

Written by Sue and Chuck DeFiore

Business owners of long standing know repparttar

cardinal rule “take care of your existing customers first”. Today especially we see business owners looking constantly for repparttar 103463

new customer. Hey, did you forget repparttar 103464

customers you have. All of us want our businesses to grow. However, after a number of years, depending on your business, you might reach a point where your business starts to taper off. You find you are not getting any new clients. Before you throw in repparttar 103465

towel, realize that you still have your current customers. Why not try to increase volume and steady revenue with your current customer base.

One of repparttar 103466 things we have discussed in a number of our articles is to get feedback from your customers. Yes, you might hear about problems. However, this is a good thing, it allows you to fix them or stop selling that product. Ever wonder why some of your customers never buy again, that product with repparttar 103467 problem might be repparttar 103468 reason. Don’t ask, don’t tell DOESN’T work in repparttar 103469 business world.

Send follow up mailings or call your clients and make sure they are happy with their purchase. This also gives you an opportunity to ask if you can be of service to them again. If they are not happy, find out why and fix it. Once you take care of it, then see if there is anything else you can do for them. You’d be surprised. Since so many businesses don’t do this, your fixing repparttar 103470 problem, gets you a loyal customer, who recommends you to their friends.

Another method we have discussed before is repparttar 103471 survey. You can find out what your customers need by taking a survey. This can be done informally by asking them when you see them or you could call them. Another way would be to send repparttar 103472 survey when you send out your brochure, flyer or if you send discount coupons to your customer. You want to find out how they are using your product, any new ways they are using it you might not have thought of. You also want to find out if there are any related products or services they are also buying. If you do call don’t try to get a sale, if one comes, so be it, but repparttar 103473 purpose of repparttar 103474 call is not to make a sale, but to gather information.

Many times, like us, you may come up with another product or service you could offer. For example, from repparttar 103475 surveys and questions we asked of our coaching students, we came up with repparttar 103476 idea to add video/audio to our coaching program and then after further research to all of our products. This allowed us to offer repparttar 103477 videos to current customers at a discount, of course, and it also got us new customers due to repparttar 103478 increased popularity of repparttar 103479 videos. Customers liked them because it was like having Chuck and I there at home with them.

However, for those of you selling concrete products you might want to offer your customers an opportunity to get acquainted with it. For example, let’s say a new fragrance or cream. Get a beauty consultant to give a lecture introducing repparttar 103480 product and its benefits. Or you can do it yourself. Your business is something you should be expert in, so you could certainly introduce repparttar 103481 product yourself.

Do you use this approach to Position Contracts?

Written by Mike Hayden

============================================================ Do you use this approach to Position Contracts? ============================================================

See full color web version and even listen to this PVT, visit: http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com/pvt-94-position-contracts.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "I couldn't wait for success... so I went ahead without it." -- Jonathan Winters ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

============================================================ More Org Chart boxes than people? ============================================================

In previous issues of Profitable Venture Tactics (PVT), I have discussed how to develop your Strategic Objective, Organizational Strategy, and Org Charts. For best results you must develop these in order, before you develop your Position Contracts.

1. Strategic Objective 2. Organizational Strategy 3. Org Charts

(For more information on these topics, see PVTs 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 22, 29, 36, 42, 58, 60, 65, 81)

In this issue, I will attempt to tell you how to determine repparttar best sequence to develop Position Contracts.

Whether you're in a business start-up or small business, you face this one problem:

"More boxes (on repparttar 103462 Org Chart) than people."

In other words, when you first develop your company's Org Chart, you see how repparttar 103463 number of positions (boxes) exceeds available people to fill them. So inevitably, certain people must occupy two or more positions at once.

While filling more than one position has inherent problems, it also complicates how you sequence repparttar 103464 development of Position Contracts. Let me explain.

============================================================ What are repparttar 103465 limitations of this "Standard Approach?" ============================================================

If you stick to repparttar 103466 "standard approach" to developing Position Contracts, you'll use repparttar 103467 following strict procedure.

You develop repparttar 103468 Position Contract for repparttar 103469 President (or CEO, or an equivalent title). You then have this Contract approved and adopted. (For more on Position Contracts, see PVTs 15, 18, 81)

Then you proceed to repparttar 103470 next management level (typically VPs). Again, you (or someone) would write repparttar 103471 Contracts for approval (with likely revisions) and adoption.

Diligently, you continue this process down your entire Org Chart, one level at a time, until you reach repparttar 103472 lowest positions.

Here's repparttar 103473 Good News:

This "standard approach" is good since it sticks to repparttar 103474 idea that a Contract for any position must be derived from its immediate managing position ("above"). Thus, repparttar 103475 process is orderly and logical.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>