Do you spend at least three hours per week reading magazines, newspapers, and Web sites that report on overall or “general” market trends? Observe what trends are starting in your geographic area, nationally, and worldwide.

Some recommended sources of valuable information with which you should become familiar are the New York Times Sunday Edition, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Time, Newsweek, and People, as well as all of your local newspapers and magazines.

Keep an eye out for trends that may affect your business. Things could change very fast, making what you sell obsolete or, on the other hand, needed more than ever.

Study the business trends that are happening outside of your industry for ideas that could be used in yours. Many ideas are transferable from one industry to another, and you may be able to find and implement an idea that is new to your industry.

For example: the ballpoint pen was the basis for roll­on deodorant. Here’s another example: just after McDonald’s started expanding, one of their corporate executives was in his car, waiting to do his banking at a drive ­through window. The executive started thinking, “How could we use this at McDonald’s?” The result was the start of drive­through fast food.

Many advertising headlines are transferred from one industry to another.
Here is such a headline: “I’ll Teach You How To Quickly And Easily Get All The Credit You Ever Wanted.” It could be changed to the new headline “I’ll Show You How To Quickly And Easily Cut All The Steel Pipe You Need To Cut.”

The beauty of doing this research is that your com­petition won’t discover what you have learned or what your next marketing effort will be until it is too late for them. The information that you need to create unique marketing programs is out there waiting for you.

Where are you going to look for helpful ideas from other industries?

Your customers are not created equal. Give or take a few percentage points, 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your customer base.

It is wise, therefore, to categorize your clients into five distinct categories. Use -5, or AE (or some other rating system that you develop), with 1 or A being your best and most profitable clients and 5 or E being the clients with whom you spend a great deal of your time but from whom you make very little profit.

” Twenty percent of the customers account
for 80 percent of the turnover; 20 percent of the components
account for 80 percent of the cost and so forth.”
Vilfredo Pareto, Pareto’s Law

After you have categorized all of your customers, I suggest that you “fire” the ones that make up the bottom of the list. I know that this sounds like a bold thing to do, and maybe even a little bit crazy, but you will find that your business is more profitable in the end.

The easiest way to rid your business of the troublesome “low-end” clients is to raise your prices. Again, this sounds like a bold thing to do, but your better customers know that price isn’t everything.

Your business should have the service and value to back up your prices. A price increase should send your “low-end” customers to your competitors.

Believe it or not, you will benefit from this. These customers don’t care about the value that you offer and they take up a lot of your time.

These clients are not interested in anything but price. Let them go! Let them slow down your competitors and give them the headache of being busy for very little profit.

Meanwhile, you will be able to spend your valuable time working with the better customers on your list. You already know that most of your profits come from your best clients. Therefore, focus on keeping only the better clients.

Work to get all of them to the “number one” category by offering amazing value when they give you their business.

How many clients do you have in each category?

Do you know any of the “little things?”

Do you know her birthday?

Do you know the name of his spouse or kids?

How about hometown, favorite store, or favorite sport?

What about your client’s hobbies?

Do you have similar musical tastes?

Do he like cigars? What is her favorite adult beverage, or is she a nondrinker?

Does your client have a favorite perfume or cologne?

When you learn even the smallest detail about your clients and prospects, record those things into your contact management system.

It is especially important to note the details about your clients that are unrelated to business.
You can use this carefully gathered information in many ways-for example, sending them cards on their birthdays or anniversaries; alerting them to newspaper stories, magazine articles, and Internet links about things in which they are interested; giving them tickets to events that they enjoy; and many other things, all of which are related to your discoveries of their interests.

When you remember the smallest details, you will be amazed at how your clients will remember and appreciate your thoughtfulness. These acts of caring on your part can lead to a genuine, longlasting relationship with your client.

Everyone is different, and each relationship has a different dynamic that builds and changes over time. Marketing is relationship building. Every great business person understands this and works at building longterm relationships with his/her clients.

The most important sale that you ever will get from a customer is the second sale because it is the start of a lasting relationship. In addition, the second sale can lead to a profitable future, perhaps as much in friendship as in business.

How well are you getting to know your clients and prospects?

Is it the money that you have in your business account at the bank?

Is it all of the products on your merchandising shelves?

Is it the stock in your warehouse?

How about your great employees? Is it them?

No, it’s none of these things, though all of them are important.

The most important assets that your busi­ness has are its clients and customers! Period.

Without them, you have no business.

“One of the most important lessons
of business is the value of concentrating
on the customers you have.”
Tom Monaghan

I surely hope that you have all of your clients and customers logged into a carefully organized database. It makes it so much easier to stay in contact with your customers if you have all of them in a database.

In addition, it makes implementing many of the marketing methods discussed in this blog much simpler.

A client once hired me to write two marketing letters, one to his active customers and another to his inactive customers. When I had finished writing these letters, I asked my client to send me his database so that I could handle the task of mailing out the letters.

What a mess!

There were about fifteen hundred names in the data­base, which turned out to be his accounting database. The only contact person listed for each customer was the person in the customer’s office who was in charge of accounts payable!

I’m sure that it was important to know who that person was when my client had invoicing issues. However, an accounts payable contact was not the person to whom we wanted to send mail regarding a new product offering.

To make matters worse, my client’s “active contact” database had at least five thousand names in it. On top of that, prospects and active clients were thrown in together. In other words, there was no separation into “current client,” “inactive client,” or “prospective client” files. What a disaster!

Lesson learned: I should have asked my client how his database was structured before I wrote the let­ters for him. My mistake!

We had to put the project on hold until he could find the time to get his database organized with the correct contact names plugged in for each active and inactive customer.

As of this writing, we still haven’t mailed those letters.

Time is money. Please don’t make this mistake with your most valuable asset.

If you don’t have a customer database, or if your database is a mess, it will put your business at a compet­itive disadvantage.

What are you doing to maintain the database records for your #1 asset

“Branding” simply means creating a personality for your business —giving it a unique look, feel, taste, touch, sound, smell, texture, color, or even typeface.

Branding also means using every opportunity to give your business a consistent theme and a “stand¬out” look. Having a recognizable brand is essential to surviving in today’s business environment.

Brand recognition alone may not be enough to get people to buy your products/services. People need reasons to buy. You have to ingrain your brand image into their brains by associating your brand with a positive feeling. When you do, people will remember your prod¬ucts/services and will feel good about buying from you.

Getting your business noticed in an inexpensive way is very possible if you are a clever business owner who is motivated to create a brand for yourself.

First, you can create and perfect your very own brand in your local market and then decide if you want to expand.

Most small businesses don’t have the marketing budget that the giant corporations have to spend on their brand image.

If you have a little money, a lot of chutzpah, and know how to harness the magic of low¬cost or free publicity and promotions, you can make your brand and business stand out!

Make the invisible visible.

Make your business an obsession.

Take every opportunity, no matter how small, to talk about your business. This will get you noticed.

It’s important to make the media aware of you, your business, and its brand image. You have to make your­self available. Use the free publicity that the media can offer to spread your marketing message and expand your brand recognition to a wider market.

What are you doing to give your business a positive image?