The trend is moving far away from fast talking sales folk and towards building genuine relationships between businesses and their customers.

Jump on the friendliest boat around this year. Duct Tape Marketing’s recent post Snackfest Continues- 2009 Marketing Advice shares some words to the business-wise for 2009. I was happy to see so many comments about relationship building, authenticity and acting boldly.

Why not send greeting cards to

-start the conversation

-appreciate referrals

-acknowledge long term clients

-highlight community/charity involvement

-invite loyal customers to a client appreciation event

-give savings or gifts towards your product or service

Remember back in the day of pen pals in classrooms? Children would spend time writing to other classrooms far far away. Then they’d excitedly wait for a response. Long distance friendships developed and seemed to have the ability to last a lifetime. During times of war, lovers would write and write until they were finally reunited. Now with email, voicemail, Skype, and Facebook the idea of receiving something other than bills or junk mail in the mail seems foreign, exciting and surprising.

We all are guilty of falling behind on our incredibly long to do lists. Armed with our best intentions, we mean to remember to acknowledge and show appreciation, but we often forget as the work load piles up on our desk.

With a program like Send Out Cards it becomes that much easier to remember to acknowledge. And if it’s easy, we’ll likely do it much more often. Think of all of the day’s you’ll brighten with a thoughtful greeting.

Join us starting February 1 for 28 day and 28 ways to use Send Out Cards

You work from home, and think that having the worlds shortest commute to work is the best thing going. Most days.  Wondering how to grow your business? Feeling a little isolated perhaps?

Clearly the quickest way to grow your business is by joining an organization. But they cost money to join you say. Of course, and if you look at it as an investment in your business, you are on the right track.  Continue to think of it as ‘costing you money’ and you are going down the wrong path.
Personally, I belong to several Chambers, womens networking groups, associations, entrepreneurial organizations, marketing clubs, and mastermind groups. I truly believe that none of these ‘cost’ me a cent.  I chose to invest both my time and money in my business by becoming part of something bigger.
Whenever we become part of something, we begin to create relationships. That is one of the easiest way to grow any business. Be on the lookout for how you can help the other guy find what he is looking for first.  By doing just that, you will find what you are looking for, too.  It’s like Jim Rohn says, don’t take your needs to the market, take your value.

Following up with real estate clients is essential to any real estate agent’s business because:

1. After the time and energy invested in landing a new client it only makes sense to find ways of keeping in touch.

2. When the pipeline is emptier than you’d like it to be, you have time to build up your relationships with your current clients.

3. When your pipeline is fuller than you’d like it to be, you have every reason to continue to keep it full.

Keep up on the real estate client follow up by creating a system that will work when in periods of scarcity and abundance.

Some ideas on real estate client follow up:

-Post date a move in anniversary card every year on your client’s move in date

-Post date a birthday card

-Send a seasonal, customized postcard around the home checklist

-Start a referral program and detail it in a card – along with a gift card to any of Send Out Card’s merchants

Like most of you, I received a lot of holiday greeting cards this year. And now, not having the heart to recycle them all – I took a long look at which ones I really liked and wanted to keep.

It turns out that there were only two types that I kept – homemade and high quality printed cards.

High quality printed cards, like Send Out Cards means that I can reuse the cards in creative ways. Like framing them for holiday decorating next Christmas. Or creating ornaments. Or making them into homemade cards or scrapbook pages.

Here’s the one you’ll likely use the most– eliminate cold call techniques and embrace floods of warm calls.

If you’re in any type of sales that requires you to meet new contacts, you’ve probably dreaded making impersonal sales calls to strangers.

And while cold calling was a great technique in years past, savvy marketers and sales people will confirm dialogue, relationship and trust building over a longer period of time work better to create authentic and loyal clients.

So, to keep our pipelines full – try sending a greeting card to a prospect in the mail first. Voila! There’s your “much warmer” cold call.

Now, it will be easy to make that follow up phone call. After all, you’re just calling to see if they received your card in the mail. Better yet, your lead might just call you to thank you for your personal touch and care.

And if you have a boss who requires you to fill a quota of cold calls – show them how many personal greeting you sent out – chances are they’ll be impressed by your initiative.

When the mailman comes I feel like I have psychic abilities! I can always spot a greeting card amongst the bills, and the host of  oh-so-colorful junk mail. SendOutCards are a quality 5 x 7 glossy card nicely stuffed into an envelope with a real stamp. Never metered postage. And it’s all done for you.

Put yourself in one of your friends or customers shoes for a minute. You’d be pleased that someone thought to send you a card. Lots of times we have particular reasons to send a card; we want to acknowledge an event like a birthday, anniversary,  promotion at work, thank you’s  or first home.

But …what if you sent a card to someone for no other reason, than thinking of you. Wow!  Sending  real greeting cards in the mail; it’s a lost art coming back. Why not think of someone to send a card to right now? All you have to do is use the SendOutCard system to brighten someones’ day. Try it today !

So, who’s waiting to hear from you?

From time to time I like to share articles from business colleagues I admire. Today, Brandon Roe talks about websites that sell.

One of the strongest and most versatile tools a business owner can have working for them to bring in new customers is a good web site.

Unfortunately, though, many business owners and entrepreneurs are duped into paying hundreds (or even thousands of dollars) on something that has no possible chance of ever bringing them a steady supply of new clients. If you’re currently in the market to have a new site put together for you, or you’re sick and tired of having a site that doesn’t do anything except take money out of your pocket, consider this…

The goal (and only goal) of your web site should be to either:

*   Get an interested prospect to raise their hand and tell you in some way that they want to hear more about you (called lead generation) or

*    Get an interested prospect to buy something.

That’s it. Your web site is not supposed to just build brand, or “respect the profession” or look cool and new and fresh. It is supposed to sell, plain and simple.

Anything that any other “expert” in the industry tells you is wrong.

Here are 3 Ways To Create A Website that Sells

1. It should be especially easy to use.
The easier the better. One reason that Yahoo lost out to Google in the search engine wars was because of how complicated Yahoo got over time. Their home page eventually had a hundred links or more – all really small and difficult to see. It became confusing and time-consuming for viewers to go through and eventually they gave up. Google, on the other hand, is simple. You have the search box and a few buttons. We know what we’re supposed to do and we do it.

Your web site should be the same. In the first few seconds, you need to identify to the viewer why they should care about what you have to offer and what you want them to do. Don’t make them hunt for the reason. Most often, they won’t bother. They will just go to the competition.

2. Get to the point
No “splash pages” or excessive flash. We’re all busy and even though web developers love to put them together (and charge a lot for it), the majority of Internet surfers don’t want to wait for your carefully crafted, high-quality flashy introduction. The faster you are at giving the viewer what he wants, the longer he will stick around.

3) Make a free offer
Most importantly, always make a free offer on any site you create. Because it’s so easy for your potential customer to leave for the next page, you will want to try and capture their information as quickly as possible for follow-up by e-mail, phone or mail later. A free offer that gives your first time visits some really good information that will help accomplish that.

For example, my own special report for small business owners and sales professionals is called “How To Double Your Profits in 90 Days Or Less”. It’s a free report with the potential to change someone’s business for the better in a very short period of time. When someone visits my page (brandonroe.com), they are immediately invited to get it, in exchange for name, e-mail, city and how they heard about us. Now I have the opportunity to follow-up with them in the future with an invitation to attend one of my meetings.

Pretty simple, but very important. Good luck!

PS. If you’d like some help putting together a new site, feel free to e-mail Brandon at info@NoBSinVancouver.com
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Brandon Roe is a “direct-response” marketing consultant that specializes in helping small and medium-size business owners get more bang for their marketing buck, especially in difficult economic times. Visit his web site to receive a free special report entitled, How To Double Your Profits In 90 Days or Less. It’s available at www.brandonroe.com.