Learn their Names

Customers love to be called by name, so learn and use names as often as you can. If your staff has trouble remembering the names of your regulars, offer your employees some sort of incentive to make a point of calling your customers by name. Keep in mind these customers are more than likely already recognized by your JV partner, and they want to be recognized by your company as well.

Remember their Favorite Products

Regular customers often purchase the same products over and over. Keep track of the purchases your customers make; you can even make a spreadsheet to track the most frequent purchases. Once you know which products or services a particular customer likes, notify them of sales or promotions on those items. Put a few aside so they are always in stock when your customer comes in. Customer love to feel they are getting the royal treatment when they walk through your door.

Follow Through after the Sale

Once a sale is complete, follow up with your customer to ensure the product and service the customer received were both satisfactory. If your customer had an issue with the product or the sales process, send a coupon out to entice the customer back once the issue is resolved to their satisfaction. This extra effort will let the customer know you value their business as much as your joint venture partner does, and it will keep him coming back to your company for more.

Bend a Policy

Most policies and procedures can be bent or even broken from time to time to keep a customer happy. This is especially true for your regulars. Maybe your customer needs a rush on an order or requires a special item you don’t usually stock. When you go the extra mile for your customer, you let them know they are important to you and your company.

Ask them for Feedback

You can hand out feedback cards, offer an online survey or simply ask your customers how you’re doing. Find out if there are any products you don’t carry that your customers would like. Ask if the products and service they receive meets their expectations. Find out what you could do to make the experience with your company more convenient and enjoyable. People love to be asked for their opinion, and the information you receive from your customers could help you raise your service bar overall.

Joint ventures are an excellent way to grow your customer base, but once those new customers come into your business, it is up to you to ensure they keep coming back for more. With these tips on exceeding your customers’ expectations, you can rest assured your client base will leave your business satisfied with their products and services every time they do business with you.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

What is an Autoresponder?

Simply put, an autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers emails that are sent to it. However, the idea of an autoresponder can become rather complex, depending on what you want your autoresponder to do. In addition to basic responses, an autoresponder can also shoulder the following responsibilities:

• Manage subscriptions for newsletters or promotion announcements

• Track the people who open your emails and even categorize them once you get up to a certain number

• Build communication with current and prospective customers

• Broadcast messages to your subscribers

As you can see, an autoresponder handles much of the work you might normally do yourself to contact customers. However, this computer program can reach many more customers in a fraction of the time than you can do yourself, making it well worth the cost of a program. In fact, most Internet marketers claim that the use of autoresponders can boost sales from a mere 3% of potential buyers to as much as 30% in some cases.

The Importance of Follow-Up

The reason for increased sales through the use of an autoresponder is actually quite simple – follow-up. When you follow up with potential customers, you are more likely to get the sale than if you leave them hanging. Potential customers who don’t receive follow-up contact from you may never buy because:

• Potential customers rarely buy after their first contact with a business

• Some potential customers may not be able to afford a purchase right away

• Many may be in the process of “shopping around” and aren’t ready to make a purchase decision

When your potential customers receive follow-up information from you, you are building brand recognition and credibility for yourself. You are also reminding customers who may have become busy with other projects that you are still happy to get their business. This is where an autoresponder can nab sales that you might otherwise miss without some sort of follow-up to potential customers who have contacted your website.

Autoresponders do the work for you, so you can rest assured that customers are receiving the proper contact without the need for you to pour many hours into the process. The automation allows you to focus on other important responsibilities of your business. You save time on sending emails, managing subscriber lists and entering new names and contact information onto your lists. The autoresponder program can handle these tasks for you so you can move on with the important task of managing your company. In addition to the timesavings, the autoresponder will handle tasks with better precision so you can rest assured all potential customers are reached efficiently and consistently.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Once you have created a few JV partnerships, it is time to make the Internet work for your business, with website tips guaranteed to broaden your customer base.

Use Search Engine Optimization

When people need a product or service, they use the search engines to find the companies that provide what they are looking for. While you can use Google tools for this purpose, the best course of action is to hire an SEO expert for this purpose. Although your JV marketing efforts will be effective in growing your customer base, a little search engine savvy can’t hurt either. Your JV partner probably already knows the tricks of the trade, so you will need to get up to speed to ensure you are doing your part to attract new business.

Make Your Company Inviting

Once your customers find you, it is up to you to ensure that they stay long enough to make a purchase. When designing your website, set it up for easy, convenient navigation. Post your phone number, address and direct email link on your contact page so customers can get in touch with you easily. Offer easy to follow links that move from one page to another and add a few full-color photos to make your website and your products more enticing.

Provide a Physical Location

Few businesses do well when they limit to all of their business to online transactions. Even in this electronic age, customers feel more comfortable with a business that offers a brick and mortar location, as well as a website address. When you provide the contact information above, you are doing more than offering your customers information to get in touch with you. You are also showing stability in your business by providing a physical location and an actual person over a phone line with whom your customers can connect.

Know Your Customer

This advice is not strictly geared to online businesses, but it does tend to get lost in the translation when setting up a virtual business. Your company may get seen by many more customers through the Internet, but your website still needs to address the specific needs of your customers in order to get noticed. You can hire a company to perform market research for you, or you can do your own through customer surveys and other techniques that will help you learn what your customers want and why they buy certain products.

JV marketing may bring more customers to your website, but then it is up to you to entice customers to stick around and shop. Like a brick and mortar store, your website needs to build your customer’s confidence and interest in your company through a high quality site that offers ample information about your business and the products and services you offer.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.

Where are you focusing your time?

Are your current actions bringing you closer to or further from your major objectives in your life, family or business?

This short optimization video challenges your to write down everything you do for the next 7 days to see exactly where your time is going.

I think you’ll be amazed at where your time is spent compared to where you “think” it’s spent.

To your success,

Christian

Create a Google Account

Your JV business should have a Google email account. Even if it uses a domain email (i.e.: info@yourbusinessname.com), you can set up a free account on Google’s Gmail system. Ideally, you would want something like “yourcompanyname@gmail.com”. That email account can then be used as your Buzz account.

Start Following People and Businesses

Right now in its early stages, Google Buzz is much like Facebook was when it started. It focused mainly on people and individual networking. However, Facebook has expanded to become a networking hub for businesses. A business can set up a “fan” account and collect followers just like an individual.

Google Buzz is already growing in popularity, and businesses are taking advantage of the additional social networking opportunities from a reliable host. Start building your Buzz network. Those you follow get notification and can follow you back. Thus, the more you follow, the more likely you’ll get a following in return.

Post Creative Content

A status update once in a while will not build a loyal following. However, using the tools available at Google Buzz, you can promote your JV in creative ways. Write blog articles. Take colorful product photos. Produce high-quality video content. All these can be seen or viewed easily in your status updates.

Get Recommended

The nice thing about Google Buzz is that it uses the same technology Google uses for its Adwords links. Google Buzz takes a look at the content that gets the most attention and brings it to your attention first. You can get the most relevant updates from your contacts and vice-versa.

Also, Google Buzz looks at the type of content you post and read. It will make recommendations to you based on your usage. This is also good news for your JV business. The more your JV Google Buzz accounts gets noticed, the more likely it will be recommended to others, and your network can grow without you lifting a finger.

Social Media SEO

Google now is using Google Buzz updates in their search results. The items you post to your Google Buzz account can affect your SEO. Use it wisely. Post keyword-rich status updates and blog posts. Use keywords for your photos and videos. The more relevant your Google Buzz posts are, the more likely it will get noticed in search results.

It was inevitable that Google would enter the social website market. Make good use of your social media sites, and include Google Buzz in your mix. It could improve your JV SEO and overall Internet presence.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.

If you need to write your own content, to update your blog on a regular basis, you might want to consider investing in a speech recognition software package. Two of the most popular ones are MacSpeech Dictate, for the Mac platform and Naturally Speaking Dragon for the PC platform.

Face it, writing good, unique, quality content takes time. If you want to optimize your site’s SEO and indexability, it’s vital that you have unique content. Using private label resell content may get you some ideas, but you still need to reword your article by at least 30% so the search engines will consider a unique.
If you’ve never used speech recognition software before, I think you’re going to be amazed by how much time you can save by talking your concepts, ideas, and thoughts into your favorite word processing program and having your ideas come to life at the speed of sound.

It’s human nature to think and speak. Thinking and writing can be a more complicated process. Once you have an idea or concept in your head is simply a matter of putting on your headphones and speaking in your natural voice as you watch the words that you’re speaking as almost magically appear on your page.
Personally, I’m a Mac guy. While I run virtual machines on my Mac to run programs that will only run on a PC, 95% of the work that I do is all based on the Mac, so I’m actually writing this article with a program called MacSpeech Dictate. Not only can you speak words that are transcribed, but you can also control 80-90% of the commands that you usually use a keyboard and mouse for, with your voice.

For example, I can create new documents by saying, “create new document” or I can save my document by saying “save this document”.  It’s that easy! Once you work with the software for about an hour, you start to get comfortable with how to speak, what the basic commands are, and most importantly, the tremendous momentum that you’ll gain by speaking your thoughts directly onto your page instead of the more tedious process of thinking, typing, editing. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to make edits as the recognition software isn’t perfect, but the time you’ll save in typing and editing alone is worth the price of the software tenfold.

There is one more benefit of using speech recognition software besides the obvious time saving results you’ll get. If you’ve been typing more than a few hours a day for several years, you may experience some type of pain in your wrists, hands, or fingers. You may even be suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. If this is the case, by using speech recognition software, the time your fingers are actually on the keyboard and the mouse can be reduced by as much as 80%!

Regardless if you’re an author, writer or blogger, I’d highly recommend investing in some type of speech recognition software to optimize your time and effectiveness whenever you need to create unique, written content.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report

Productivity can have a profound effect on your joint venture relationship teams. Understanding how to increase the productivity or work output of your team or of your joint venture partners team can increase your profits as well as create future partnership projects.

This is an interesting experiment done back in the 1920′s by a manufacturing plant on human productivity.

Quoted from by John C. Harrison’s work on the “The National Stuttering Project”

A little history.  The Hawthorne plant was the manufacturing arm for the telephone companies of the Bell System.  It employed over 29,000 men and women in the manufacture of telephones, central office equipment, loading coils, telephone wire, lead-covered cable, toll cable, and other forms of telephone apparatus.

In the mid-1920s, the Hawthorne plant undertook a series of studies to investigate how it could improve worker output.  In particular, the company was interested in discovering whether manipulating the lighting, break schedules, and other workplace conditions would lead to higher production.  It was thought that even slight improvements could have significant impact on the company’s bottom line because of the enormous volume of products that the plant turned out for the Bell network.

One of the earliest experiments involved a group of six women from the coil winding production line.  These volunteers were pulled from the line and relocated into a smaller room where various elements of the environment could be manipulated.

The first experiment looked at whether changing the intensity of the lighting in the working environment would have a positive impact on production.  The experimenters started out with the same lighting intensity the workers were used to on the production line.  They then increased the light a few candlepower.

Production went up.

Pleased with the results, they increased the room light by another few candlepower.

Production went up again.

Now, quite confident that they were on to something, they continued to increase the room lighting a little bit more each time until the illumination in the room was several times the normal intensity.  At each increment of change, the production of the six women continued to rise.  At this point, the researchers felt a need to validate their hypothesis that better lighting was responsible for the increased output, so they brought the lighting intensity back to the original starting point and dropped it by a few candlepower.

To their surprise, production continued to go up.

Was this a fluke?  Simultaneously bothered and intrigued, the research team reduced the lighting by another couple of candlepower, and sure enough, production continued to rise.  They continued to reduce the illumination in the room until the women were working in the dimmest of light.  At each lower lighting increment, production was still a little bit higher, and it continued to rise until the lighting was so dim that the women could barely see their work.  At that point, their output began to level off.

What was going on?

It was clearly not an improvement in lighting that increased production, especially since production continued to rise in the face of less favorable lighting conditions.  After testing numerous other environmental factors, the answer emerged.  Although these changes in the work environment did have some lesser effect, the reason for the higher production lay in the fact that bringing the workers together allowed them to coalesce into a cohesive group, and it was the creation of this group dynamic that had a profound effect on the mindset and output of each individual group member.

To better understand what happened, let’s look more closely at the differences between the two work environments and how these differences impacted the women in the coil winding room.  While they were just nameless cogs on the production line, the workers lacked any sense of importance.  They had few meaningful associations with their co-workers.  Their relationship with their boss was primarily adversarial.  He (and it was always a “he”) was the whip cracker, exhorting them to work harder and faster.  There was little personal responsibility for turning out a quality product.  Someone else set the standards, and they just performed according to instructions.

There was not much pride in what they did.  It was, to conjure up a familiar phrase, just a job.

But all this changed when the six women were pulled from the production line and given their own private workspace.  From the very beginning they basked in the attention paid to them by the research team.  Each of the women was not just an impersonal face on the production line.

She was now a “somebody.”

For further explanation of the Hawthorne Effect, download the usability study at: http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/jus/2007may/hawthorne-effect.pdf

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report