Social networking is hot right now, but most small business owners are getting cold results from it.
Here's an excerpt from 9 Rules of Facebook Promotion Every Small Business Should Know by Nick O'Neill of allfacebook.com that will help you heat things up:
"You’re the owner of a local small business and you are trying to figure out the best steps to get on to Facebook to drive new customers. It can be a daunting task and with little extra time in the day, how can you be expected to spend time promoting your business on Facebook? I completely understand the challenges of running a small business and after speaking with lawyers, florists, dentists, and many other small businesses, I’ve compiled the following list of strategies that should help ease the process.1. Go Slow And Steady, Don’t Overdo It
Any form of promotion is like compound interest. It takes time to build up the residual returns but if you stick with it, the pay off can be substantial. Many people hear that Facebook is a great way to promote their business but after trying it out for a few days or even a couple weeks, they don’t see significant effects so they give up and decide to keep paying for Yellow page advertisements. Who knows how well Yellow Page ads pay off but that monthly check must be going towards something, right?
The difference between Facebook and more traditional promotional channels is that the small business owner needs to invest a little bit of their time. The extra effort can go a long way and can even provide a rewarding experience as customers begin to provide feedback and communicate directly with you. So how much time do you need to be spending? Not hours a day! While promoting via Facebook can become an addictive process, you can allocate little more than an hour a week to your promotional activities.
While it’s never bad to start off enthusiastically, you don’t want to waste all of your efforts in the first few days. Build up your fan base steadily and you’ll begin to see the benefits. " Read the other 8 Rules here ....
Marketing: The way you present your products to the buyer. Marketing tends to go hand in hand with advertising.
National Sales Director: A sales director who has achieved the highest level of sales and recruits in the company throughout the nation.Recruiter: The person you sign up under when you become a direct sales business owner. This person is your team leader or upline. They normally make a commission percentage off of the sales you make.
Residual Income: Money that you earn over and over (usually monthly) when someone signs up for a recurring product or service through you.Target market: A certain group of people the company or salesperson wishes to market products to.
Team Trainer: This person is responsible for training a team about the product the company sells. They have worked in the business for awhile and know the products and the company very well. If you’ve been thinking about joining a direct sales company, you’ve
probably heard terms like up line, down line, cold calling, hostess, and more.
These, along with others, may be words you’ve never heard used before. If you
plan to join any direct sales company, it’s wise to learn these terms and what
they mean to help you succeed even more at your business. Here’s the first half
of the Direct Sales Beginner’s Dictionary.
Annual
Conference or Seminar: This is usually a trip to a large city where
everyone in a designated area or district goes to get awarded for sales and
recruits. Often the conferences are filled with shows, classes and awards
ceremonies. They are fun, motivational and encouraging to attend. Some
companies offer an incentive, like a free pass or discounted rate to the
conference for meeting a specific sales goal or recruiting goal.
Client: A more
sophisticated term for a customer.
Clientele is the plural form of client.
Close or
closing: The act of getting the customer to make a commitment to purchase.
Cold
calling: The act of making phone calls to unknown persons or persons not
expecting a call from you or your company and there is no known need of the
person receiving the call.
Commission: The amount of money you, the salesperson,
will make from the sales at a show, class or party.
Consultant: A term
often used in place of ‘salesperson’ by direct sales companies.
Consumer: The
person purchasing and/or using the product or service.
Customer
Service: Taking care of your customers, their needs and desires in a
professional and courteous manner.
Database: A record
of all your clientele’s information, purchases, desires, etc. A database can be
stored in a folder in a file cabinet, on index cards or on a spreadsheet in a
computer software program such as Microsoft Excel.
Demographics: The
information about people in a certain marketing area or territory such as age,
number of men, number of women, number of mothers, number of children, income
brackets, home owners, renters, line of work, etc.
Host/Hostess: The
person holding the show, class, party or meeting in their home. Usually the
hostess will receive free or discounted items for reaching a certain number of
sales and/or recruits at their show.
Incentive: A reward
for sales or purchases.
Inventory: Products
or goods on-hand, ready to sell.
Some things never change. When times are hard, people seek out new ways to replace lost income through a sideline business and direct sales companies are usually the first place they look.
Direct sales offers a ready made business that appeals to both laid-off professionals and stay-at-home moms with low start up expenses. People who in flush times would not consider "selling" things, are more than willing to break out of their comfort zones and knock on doors, hold parties, and do whatever it takes when times are hard. Consider this:
"Job cuts, shrinking bonuses and scaled-back hours have pushed more people than ever to become direct sales representatives, a phenomenon industry experts say they've seen before.
In the 1990-1991 recession, the number of direct sellers increased 8 percent to 5.1 million Americans. In the 2001 recession, the work force increased to 12.2 million.And while 2008 figures are not yet available, in 2007 an estimated 15 million people nationwide were in direct sales. Some 58 percent of became reps as a second job, according to the Direct Selling Association, a trade group that represents 200 U.S. companies." More
Savvy direct sellers would do well to focus on this new crop of potential recruits. In this recession, likely prospects are everywhere.
USA Today recently published this article about the boom in direct sales that is happening because of the recession. More people than ever are turning to direct sales to supplement their income or replace their lost jobs.
This interest in a direct sales career spans from young women who are entering the job market for the first time to women (and men) who need to supplement their retirement income.
So keep this in mind during your marketing efforts for your business by actively targeting this market and offering them a direct sales career as a viable option.
Direct sales (like Avon, Mary Kay) offer recession-proof jobs
I’m willing to bet if you own an MLM business you were extremely motivated and all gung-ho about it in the beginning, right? You had visions of sales through the roof and recruits a plenty. Something happened along the way though. The exhilaration has died down. Your goals aren’t being met and you’re wondering if you were really as cut out for this business as you once thought.
Of course you are! You just need to find your motivation again and here are tips to help you do just that. Get excited about your business again.
1. Goals Can Be Re-Worked
If you haven’t met a goal or two, don’t get down on yourself. Stop and think about why you didn’t meet those milestones. Maybe you aimed too high too early. On the flip side of the coin, maybe you made the goal too easy to obtain and when you reached it the sense of accomplishment just wasn’t there. Take the time to re-evaluate your goals and set some new ones that will help to get you pumped up again.
2. Look at Those Who Are Successful on Your Team
Ask your directors, team leaders and fellow reps what keeps them going. Be a motivator for others and watch how it rubs off on you too. Find someone you can follow and see how they stay motivated.
3. Revisit the Past
You were keyed up about this business for a reason in the beginning. Take time to think about what got you all excited and motivated in the very beginning. Was it the incentives the company offered? Did you want the freedom a business of your own gives you? Whatever it was, find it and focus on those things again.
4. Past Customers Make Repeat Customers
Take the time to call old customers. Repeat customers can make up a huge portion of your business.
5. Talk to Your Upline
When you feel like you’ve run out of people to contact, ask your upline if they have access to leads from others who have left the company or some of their own they don’t have the time to work with that they would be willing to send your way.
6. Use Your Own Products
If you haven’t used the product you’re selling in awhile, take another look and remember what makes it so great.
7. Do you have out of season items that you can bundle and offer for a special sale? If so, pull them out, put something together and call people to show them what you’ve got to offer.
8. Go to the Company Motivators
Most MLM companies have materials, such as videos or CDs that are meant to help motivate their reps. Take a few minutes to watch or listen to these. Attend a meeting too. They are meant to lift the spirits and will show you that others have been where you are right now and come out on top.
It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the micro-blogging and social networking site, http://www.Twitter.com
And I'm not the only one; it seems like everyone is joining the Twitter bandwagon.
So if you are new to Twitter and not sure what to post or how to build relationships with this social networking tool, here's some tips to get you started.
1. Join in the conversation. Answer a question or respond to someone whose tweet made you laugh. Post your feelings about something important that is going on in your life. Be real, not phony!
2. Post links to helpful blog posts you've read, tweet about what books or classes you are reading or taking, share a resource or web site that you think others might find helpful too.
3. Post promotional links every once in a while, not every day. And don't be blatantly pushy when you do. Just keep it easy and light and avoid the hard sell language. It's a real turn off and people will unfollow you if you go overboard with it.
4. Have fun with it! Twitter is great fun and allows you to connect with so many interesting people all over the world. Just relax and have some fun with it and people will be attracted to you naturally.
Power Tips: Make your One Line Bio count, because this is what people use to decide whether they want to follow you or not. You only get 160 characters so use them wisely.
Do not use a sales pitch. Just tell people a little bit about yourself including personal interests and hobbies. People are looking for common interests when they scan the bios in Twitter, so it makes it easier for you to connect with people if you do that.
Also, do not link directly to your sales page in your profile. It's better to link to a blog, or a profile page, Squidoo page, etc. where you are introducing yourself and your background or sharing helpful information. Remember it's rude to walk up to someone at a networking meeting and go straight into your sales pitch and it's rude to do it online too!
Finally, do you have questions about Twitter? A Twitter success story to share? Please use the comments to post them.
Happy Tweeting!
Linda Locke
http://www.twitter.com/lindalocke
By Terri Seymour
With new innovative marketing strategies business cards are not like they used to be. Remember when a business card would have name, address, phone number and that’s it? Well, today’s business cards have so much more!
Because of its cost, size and versatility, a business card can be a powerful marketing tool. Design this tool wisely. Your business card is a reflection of you and your business. Don’t just have the standard name, phone and address.
*Add your company logo, use clear & easy to read text, a picture of yourself smiling, texture, etc.
*Have the card double as a coupon or gift certificate. Be sure and clearly explain what your company does.
*Have all your contact info including email and url if applicable.
Don’t forget to utilize the space on the back of the card.
Ideas for the back of the card:
Motivational quote
Special sale or discount
Business or other tip
Your newest products/services
Your business motto
Write a personal message
Client testimonials
Ask for referrals
An entertaining (clean) joke
Use your imagination!
Have your business cards them with you always. Leave them at restaurants. Send them with your monthly bills. Post them on bulletin boards in laundromats, grocery stores, banks, etc. Hand them out to people you talk to. Give people more than one to pass on to a friend or co-worker.
Ask banks, stores, and other businesses if you can display them by the cash register or counter. Add them to all your mailings. Send them with orders. Try leaving them in library books for other people to find.
Be sure and put one in every mailing you send out. Get one of those card holders for your car and display them on your car for the taking. Leave a few in your motel and/or hotel room when you leave. Ask about leaving them in hair salons, nail salons, spas, gyms, etc.
Put a couple in your catalogs when handing them out. Leave them in rest rooms. Leave a couple at public rest areas. The possibilities are endless. Always be aware of an opportunity.
Make your card stand out from the rest. Make it unforgettable. Have some red on it. Cards with red on them stand out more. Add a picture of you or one of your products. Make the background a different color such as black. This will really stand out.
Make your card plastic or laminate it so it will last much longer. Make magnetic biz cards. People will stick you on the fridge for more exposure. Try different designs and code them so you can track the results. Offer an additional discount if they mention the code. Be sure and record all codes in a notebook. Staple a sample (if possible) to your card.
Your business card can be one of your most valuable marketing tools if used as more than just an address card.
About the Author
Terri Seymour has several years online experience and has helped many people start their own business. Visit her site at www.seymourproducts.com for help, resources & more. Seymour Products also offers resell ebooks for just $1 each and a weekly ezine. subscribe@seymourproducts.com
