Everyone loves to know they are appreciated.

The right gift lets your clients know that their friendship and business is important to you and helps cement your relationship.

The best client gift takes your client’s personal interests into account and impresses him with your thoughtfulness and sincerity.

While giving client gifts during the holidays is popular, you’ll find that clients appreciate them any time of year.

Give your clients gifts any chance you can get. Birthdays. Holidays. Important events in their lives. They will be remembered for a long, long, long, long, long time.

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
G.B. Stern

Be creative, A box of chocolates, a magazine subscription, Tickets to the movies.

How about a gift certificate to Starbucks, Home Depot or Office Max
But, here’s my rub about giving gift certificates to specific businesses…
why aim your client to spend their money at a business of your choice? Let them choose.

Here are a few Gift Ideas:
•    Custom made gifts
•    Gift certificates to events or services you know for sure that  they would enjoy
•    Send edible enjoyment: cookies, cakes, cheeses presented with class
•    Flowers, on Monday so they last all week or living plants that sometimes last for years
•    Books or magazine subscriptions relating to interests or hobbies

Warning: Be sure to look into the gift-giving policies of your clients’ companies before sending along your present.

Sadly, some companies have a “no gift” policy for their employees, and it could lead to an embarrassing situation if they must refuse your gift for this reason.

Now, how will you thanks your clients for their friendship and business?

Simply ask your friends, business associates, clients, members of your family, etc., “Who do you know who could help me with (Fill in the blank here).”

Start thinking about all of the people who could help you to achieve your goals (you do have written goals, don’t you?), realize your dreams, and help you to become more successful.

Ask everyone you know to give you an introduction to someone who might help you to reach your goals.

Twenty percent of the people you know will introduce you to individuals who can help you without even having to ask the person you know for an introduction.

Sixty percent will give introductions to you after you
ask them.

Twenty percent will never help you, no matter how many times that you ask them.

“You can’t help someone uphill without getting closer to the top yourself.”
- Unknown

It’s been said that you are never further then three people away from being introduced to the person who can help you.

Keep this in mind:  NEVER ask for help from someone who doesn’t know more than you do.

About a year ago, I wanted to interview the president of a local fortune 500 company in Detroit. I was looking for help putting together these secrets (he did know more than I did).

I started asking everyone I knew if they could suggest anyone who could introduce me to him. After about two weeks, I got a call from one of my clients, who said that his brother-in-law worked for that company.”

I called the brother-in-law, who turned out to be a vice president of the company. This gentleman said that he would speak with the president about the possibility of  interview with him to talk about his marketing efforts. The following week, I received a call from the president, he inviting me to come in and interview him for this guide.

It doesn’t always work so smoothly, but you never know. You have to keep trying!

What problems do you need solved?

Who will you ask for help?

“What’s in it for me?”

So, “what’s in it” for your future clients to buy from you and your business?

The harsh reality is that your future clients do not care about you, about your company, or about whatever it is that you are trying to sell them.

The only thing that matters to them is, “What’s in it for me?”

Now, they may have an immediate want or need for what you are selling, but they also need a strong reason to buy from you rather than from your competitors.

Every one of your marketing efforts must make promises, must make strong offers and offer benefits that your target audience can’t live without.

Why?

Your clients/future clients want you to provide solid proof that those benefits exist. Proof that the money they exchange for your products, services or ideas are worth $100.00 for every $10.00 they are going to spend.

“He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.”
- Jean Jacques Rousseau

Your marketing efforts must answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

If your marketing doesn’t convince your future clients, their answer to you will be, “No Sale.”

They either will buy from your competitors or worse, do nothing at all.

If they do nothing at all, and you could have provided them with what they wanted and needed, then you failed in your job.

Why?

Because you owe it to your future clients to present them your strongest, most powerful offer so they don’t make the mistake of doing nothing.

How will you answer your future client’s question, “What’s in it for me?”

Photo provided courtesy of J.D. Hillberry www.jdhillberry.com

We’ll in my humble opinion; the loneliest number in business is the number “one.”

When you have only one client, one product, one source of income or only one of anything, you are leaving yourself or your business vulnerable to any changes that might occur in your industry or in the general economy.

“Put all your eggs in the one basket and – WATCH THAT BASKET.”
- Mark Twain

Many stockbrokers made “big money” during the “dot-com” boom of the “Roaring 90s and more so during the latest stock run up before the bottom fell out.” They are hurting now because the stock market crashed and many investors moved their money out of the market into safer investments or took a big hit in their 401k’s.

Up until recently, mortgage brokers were enjoying a very profitable times, brought about because of the low interest rates and many other factors we’ve all seen in the media. Many of these brokers should be looking for new products, services or ideas to sell, because as we all know, things never remain the same.

Very few businesses can survive selling only one product/service.

The only one that I can think of is Lego.

How many of your product lines or services can be expanded?

Ask, what do people need before, during and after they make a purchase from you?

Can you think of anything you may offer to help fulfill those needs?

What can you do to offer more choices to your clients and add additional streams of revenue and profit to your business?

The speed with which you make a personal, business, or marketing can be the difference between success and failure.

Often, it doesn’t matter what the decision that you make actually is as long as you decide something.

The more quickly that you make a decision, the sooner that you can get on to the next item.

Because nothing happens until something moves.

Now, and I think you’ll agree. It is far better to make a wrong decision and then fix it than it is to make no decision at all. You can learn from your mistakes, but you can’t learn if you don’t act. To quote Ross Perot, “Ready, Fire! Aim

In many instances, it takes a lot less time and effort to correct a wrong decision than it takes to analyze and procrastinate before making the original decision.

Think of yourself as a guided missile speeding toward your target, making the required adjustments as you go but always moving forward.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes.
It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving
your other innovations.”
- Steve Jobs

When you learn to make decisions quickly you gain momentum.

Each quick decision adds additional momentum to your success flywheel. You will find that the more the flywheel gains momentum, the less effort that it takes to reach your ultimate goal.

I delayed making some important decisions while I was put these secrets together, only to become very frustrated when I calculated the lost opportunities that I may have left on the table.

Taking too much time to write “97 Marketing Secrets To Make More Money” cost me a lot of money. I should have acted more quickly. Nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes at one time or another.

However, it is important that we move forward, learn from our mistakes, and try again with something else.

What decisions do you need to make right now?

How many times have you waste your time worrying about problems that already have been solved by someone else?

Many other people have faced problems similar to the ones that you will run into.

More than likely, they have found solutions to these problems and may be willing to share their solutions with you.

Sometimes, many times, the solution to your problem may be found in another industry.

There are experts on solving problems everywhere:  fathers, mothers, mentors. Your suppliers, your employees and clients. Business “gurus,” trade groups or associations, librarians, the Small Business Administration, your banker, your CPA and industry leaders.

An answer to the problem that you’re facing even could come from the place you would never think about.

For example, I can’t remember where, I once read a story about how the management of a hotel dealt with their customers’ complaints about long waiting times for elevators. One of the hotel chambermaid suggested putting mirrors next to the elevators so that people wouldn’t mind the wait. Now, most hotels use this simple but effective technique.

The point is, when you have a “situation,” you need to be able to get to someone who has faced something like it before. Is in the trenches, everyday.

“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.”
- Harold Stephen

In most instances, a problem can be solved or fixed merely by mentioning to someone,”I have a problem and I need your help.”

Most people want to be helpful and will help along the way.

You just need to be willing to ask.

What problems are you having?

Are you afraid to ask for help?  Don’t be.

How often has this question been asked by you, your boss, your sales manager, or someone else?

The only one who really knows the answer is your former client.

So, why don’t you ask this person why s/he no longer buys from your company?

You might get lucky and find a customer who is prepared to talk, but keep in mind that s/he has moved on and may not want to talk to you.

Also, your customer probably will give you only one reason, then thank you for your efforts and wish you well. How much have you learned? Not much at all.

“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”
- Anonymous

I once lost a client for whom I had created a successful direct-mail campaign. This marketing effort had produced a nice 1,148.85% Return on Investment (ROI).
I found out from my client that she was upset with the slow response that she was getting from me regarding a marketing questionnaire for which she had paid. After answering the questions, my client wanted her marketing analysis, but we just couldn’t seem to find a mutually convenient time to get together. Ultimately, I gave her a refund on the questionnaire and we parted friends.

However, to this day I feel that there had to be something more. Maybe there was a hidden “decision-maker,” someone else who had a final say about who my client does business with or who harbored some ill feeling. I felt very bad when I lost my client because I was hoping that there would be a long and profitable relationship for both of us.

Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the definite reason why someone chooses to stop giving you his/her business. It can be hard to determine what complaints s/he had about you that led to the decision.

Oftentimes, you are left with very little information.

Working backwards to discover what went wrong can be very difficult. However, if you are prepared to ask a new client for a little time after the first sale or, even better, after s/he has been buying from you for awhile, then you probably can determine the things that keep him or her coming back and buying from you.

After the relationship with your client gets past the new phase and is “long-term,” ask him/her why you get his/her business.

There will be many reasons, not just one or two.

You may have to probe a little, so ask some open-ended questions. I’m sure that it will be worth it.

Build a file or a database of the answers that you get—the reasons why your clients came to you, of course, but also (if possible) the reasons that they stopped using your competition.

Learn from their answers and discover what you can do to prevent clients from going somewhere else

“ One man’s loss is another man’s gain.”
- Unknown

You can benefit by using what you have learned with your next prospect.
This information will help you to convert him or her into a new client.

What are you willing to ask your clients about