If I Had a Dime For Every Time I Got ... - Workplace Communication

Article by Karen Cynowa

? Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.? Napoleon Hill

Persistence is a key factor in achieving results. Let?s go on a journey into your business. Let?s have fun and pretend we?re in a hot air balloon. Visualize being up there, the crisp air of summer, the blue sky, wind blowing in your hair. When you look over the edge, viewing your business from above, you may see the following:

* Business is slowing down. You think, ?I need to network? as everyone keeps telling me building relationships is the way to go. Well how do you go about doing that? Joining a formal networking organization, such as BNI or LBN, is one way. Let?s try that.

* You attend the networking group and after a few months don?t see any results. Now you are exhausted and have a stack of business cards that you?ve collected. You look through the cards, trying to remember who needed your services and begin feeling overwhelmed.

* With no clear plan in sight, you stick the cards in your desk and decide to deal with them later. I think it is fairly easy to see your Return on Investment (ROI) of time is not paying any dividend. A typical service company ownerspends 80% of their marketing and sales resources on acquiring new customers. What if we could adjust the formula and become efficiencyexperts of our time. What can be done to have the greatest ROI ? whether the investment is time, money or energy?

Successful marketing requires that you are persistent in seeing activities through to the finish line. In the above example, congrats on taking the first step of getting involved in a networking group. These groups allow you to meet other professionals who may need your services or know others that will. But meeting people is not enough!

Having a plan in place to follow up with those you?ve met will allow you to achieve the results you desire. Is meeting someone enough for you to give them your own business? Or are you more likely to respond when you receive a follow up email the next day telling you how great it was to meet you with an offer to attend a free seminar that person is having?

Your follow up should demonstrate professionalism and create an incentive for another contact. Being friendly will help you make contacts but is not enough to get business from them.

The secret to wealth creation in building a business comes from systematizing all of your operational procedures and increasing revenue by way of ?automating? the marketing and sales process.

New York Times Best Selling books speak directly of the importance and value of nurturing your existing customers. In his books,?What Your Clients Won?t Tell You? and ?Why Good Companies Fire Great Companies?, John Gamble demonstrates the power of customer relationship in his discovery of Revelation X. Seth Godin, in ?All Marketers Are Liars!?, stresses the importance of a compelling story to share with prospects and the invaluable relationship with existing customers.

There are countless ways to market yourself and your business. Any marketing strategy without a clear plan for seeing it through from beginning to completion is equivalent to ?throw it against the wall and see what sticks.? By having a plan in place before you begin, you can keep your desk from becoming a card collector and make sure the marketing you do will achieve results.

Source: http://www.crawley.biz/if-i-had-a-dime-for-every-time-i-got-someones-business-card-being-persistent

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