5 Business Success Tips You Need to Know

I remember being so grateful when I started out on my first online venture for all the knowledge I gained. I spent lots of time reading books, taking courses, listening to audios, and attending webinars. In addition, I also personally received great advice from experts in my niche. They generously took time out to answer my questions.

5 Business Success Tips You Need to Know

1. Always Listen to Your Customers’ Wants and Needs

It’s crucial when it comes to making sales that you do more listening than talking. Rather than deliberating and guessing what your prospects might want, why not just ask them? I expect you’ll be surprised at how easy it’ll be to sell them what they’re already telling you they most want or need.

For example, if you have a web solutions business, instead of pushing an SEO package at your customers to help them rank their website, why not ask them what their biggest business issues are at the moment. You might find that they’re not too bothered about their ranking. They might be more concerned about their social media presence, email list management or some other service that you could provide for them.

Once you know what your customers are struggling with you can ask them how their business would benefit if those issues were solved. Then ask them how much more income they think they could generate if these issues were running smoothly. The key here is that this lets THEM tell YOU the value those services mean to them. The difference is that you’re not trying to convince them of the value that you could offer them. They’re seeing it for themselves. Talking about yourself and your products and services instead of just listening to them sharing their needs and wants can have a negative effect. The result being that you’re less likely to make those all-important sales.

Furthermore, as an added bonus this strategy works effectively both for prospects who’ve never bought from you as well as for your existing customers. For instance, you might discover that all your customers are crying out for a particular product or service. Now, it might be that you can quickly and easily create this product or service and offer it to them. However, if you don’t have the time or skills to do it yourself you can employ an outsourcer to do it for you on platforms like Fiverr.

2. Use Trust to Build Your Business

I expect there’s lots of us who’ve tried a product or service based on the recommendation of a family member, friend, or colleague. This is because we trust that person implicitly. Therefore, we’re more likely to take their word for it over someone whom we don’t know. This is the power of referrals.

Ask your existing customers if they have family or friends whom they think would be interested in your products or services. Request their permission to contact these people and invite them to browse your products or services. For example, “Your friend Tony told me you might be interested in this special offer…”. This is the perfect way to get a warm introduction to new prospects without having to cold call them. Furthermore, because you come recommended by someone, they know they’ll be more open to your offers.

For example, say you have an ecommerce business where you sell organic soap and shampoo bars. You could send an email to your existing customers asking them if they know anyone who’d love your products as much as they do. Ask your customers that do know some people that would share the email address of those people with you. Then explain that as well as offering their friend a free sample of your best-selling product, you’ll give them (your customer) a bonus of 20% off their next purchase as a thank you. When you email your new lead with your free sample offer, make sure to mention that their friend thought they’d like your products. Then say you’d love to offer them a gift of a free sample to try out.

Never underestimate the power of referrals! They give you easy access to a whole new range of prospects.

3. The Power of a Guarantee

Offering a guarantee to your customers makes it easier for them to make a purchase. It also removes any risk and gives them an out if they don’t like your product or service. There’s a psychological aspect to this too because it gives them confidence in your product or service. In addition, they’ll be thinking why would you be offering this cast-iron guarantee if you weren’t prepared to stand behind it. It goes without saying that you’d offer a great product or service before you put a guarantee on it!

For example, if you’re selling a new piece of software, you could word your guarantee along the lines of: “Try out our new state-of-the-art software risk free for 30 days. In the unlikely event that you’re not 100% satisfied with our software we’ll happily refund 100% of your money.” By offering this type of guarantee you’re instilling buyer confidence. Most of your buyers won’t take advantage of your guarantee. Moreover, the number of extra sales should far outweigh the number of refund requests.

Remember to make your guarantee crystal clear. If you add fine print or additional conditions regarding refund requests, you’ll only encourage chargebacks and irritate your customers.

4. Offering a Premium Support Service Can Increase Your Profits

When you bought your computer, you were probably offered an additional warranty. Or maybe you’ve bought a washing machine and have been offered a white glove service to deliver and install it.

These as just a couple of premium support services that can offer very large profit margins. So, even if a small number of customers buy into them, they can add a significant amount to your bottom line.

You can provide some of these services at little or no cost to yourself. For example, if you sell mobile phones, you might offer a warranty to your customers for life-time access to free replacement charger cables for a low-cost one-time fee. All they’d have to do would be to cover the postage and packaging costs. However, these cables have such huge margins that the P&P fee would cover the cost of the cables and the postage and packaging. So, the warranty offered was basically 100% profit. Good news for you. In addition, your customers got a great deal.

Other services you might want to offer would be faster support, faster service, and faster delivery. All of these can have huge margins for little to no extra work on your part!

It’s a good idea to implement a couple of extra premium support services that you can offer your customers. Make sure they are ones that come with huge margins and don’t increase your outgoings too much.

5. Sending “We Haven’t Seen You in a While” Messages

It’s essential that you keep connected to your customer base and prospects. You don’t want them to forget about your business. To help remind them about your business you could either send them an email or post a card to them. Within your message you could thank them for their loyalty and support, along with an incentive to take some kind of further action. For example, your message might include a discount voucher or a free gift leading into a sales offer.

Now, you may have a list of leads who haven’t yet bought any of your products or services. So, follow-up with them by sending an email saying you haven’t seen them in a while but want to thank them for their interest in your business. Then, mention a freebie you’re currently offering, which can lead into a paid offer. Or tell them about a special limited discount offer that’s about to expire. This is a great strategy for reviving old, “dead” leads into active buyers.

Similarly, if you have inactive existing customers, you can send them a thank you message saying you appreciate their business and include a special offer exclusive to those who’ve previously purchased your products or services. This method can quickly and easily generate more sales without too much effort.

Looking after loyal customers should be one of your key priorities. Customers are the lifeblood of any business and without them your business has no future.

To Your Success!