-•- HomeOfficeDigest.com Newsletter - Issue 260 -•-
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THE HOME OFFICE DIGEST NEWSLETTER
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BE YOUR OWN BOSS
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Put yourself out there! One of the keys to establishing a powerful 
business is networking, and you'll never build a strong network if
you aren't willing to give it a shot. Although each business needs
to build a different network of people, the basics are always just
about the same. If you're a quiet person, you are going to have to 
learn to break out of your shell, pull yourself away from the wall
and start talking. If you're sitting around just waiting for a new
business partner to come your way, you are going to be waiting for 
quite a while. One of the things that other successful businesses 
look for in building a strong network is a confident and supremely
secure person at the helm. Think about being approached yourself. 
Person A approaches you and gives you list of reasons why they are
going to be able to help your business and gives you the impression
that you'll be partners for years to come. Person B waits for you 
to initiate most of the conversation and you have to drag most if 
not all of the details out of them. Person B also says "I guess we
will see how it goes". Which person are you going to want to work
with? Person A is confident, sure of themselves, and has a plan of
action that will build both businesses for years to come. Person B
seems to be lost in a sea of confusion and not overly secure that 
their product is right for your business. I think the answer here 
is quite clear. If you're shy person by nature, you might have to 
work on that so you can come across as person A. Approach people,
give them a firm handshake, and tell them why you'll work well in
a long term partnership. Don't ask them if they're looking for a 
partnership, I said tell them why it will work. Be confident, the
worst thing that can happen is they say no.

 
FEATURED GUEST ARTICLE
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10 WAYS TO BUILD TRUST AND BUILD YOUR BUSINESS
By Charlie Cook

You wouldn't buy a car if you didn't think it could get 
you home. And you wouldn't purchase it from a dealer 
you thought was robbing you blind on the price and might 
not stand behind it if the engine fell out as you drove 
it off the lot.

Before making a purchase from you, buyers need to trust
that your products and services will do what they are
supposed to. Does your marketing help establish the trust
necessary to convince prospects to buy from you? If you're
struggling to attract clients and customers, use the
following tactics to convert prospects to clients.

1. GET TESTIMONIALS
No matter how great your credentials are or how much
experience you've had, people pay more attention to what
OTHERS have to say about you.

Pick up the phone and call your customers to ask what
they thought of your product or service, what they liked
about it and how it was helpful. Edit their comments, get
their permission to use the comments and then feature
these testimonials in your marketing materials.

2. USE ARTICLES INSTEAD OF ADS
We have come to distrust ads and to believe what we read
in published articles. Invest your time in writing articles 
to establish yourself as an expert. If you run ads, include
testimonials in them.

3. GIVE SOMETHING AWAY
When you give something to people, regardless of the cost,
they are more likely to trust you and return the favor by
buying something from you. Use an ebook, article,
workshop or free demonstration to build trust.

4. GET REFERRALS
When you need a new doctor, lawyer, plumber, carpenter
or a place to eat you ask a friend for a referral. You 
trust the recommendations of people you know, and in fact,
that's how the majority of people find jobs. Don't wait 
for the occasional referral to come in spontaneously;
implement a proactive system to generate referrals.

5. EXCHANGE ENDORSEMENTS
Team up with a business you trust that also targets your
market. Get them to include an endorsement of your
products and services in their marketing and do the same
for them. While a personal referral is ideal, an
endorsement is a close second. This tactic can double
your marketing reach at zero cost.

6. GIVE EXAMPLES
Tell a story instead of making impersonal and dramatic
claims of what you or your product does. Use case studies
to tell what you did for whom and the difference it made
in their life or their business.

7. PERSONALIZE YOUR MARKETING
Its a common misperception that to sound credible your
marketing should be dry and impersonal. People do
business with people. You need to help prospects get to
know you and trust you. Let your passion and personality
come across in your marketing as well as your
professionalism. Include a picture of yourself, with a 
smile, in a prominent place on the first page of your 
marketing materials.

8. REDUCE PERCEIVED RISK
Buyers' biggest concern is how well your product or service
will perform. Providing a guarantee may help, but in most 
cases its not going to make the sale. Clarify the value you 
provide and state your commitment to seeing that your clients 
are not only happy, but ecstatic about your product and services.

9. MAKE CONTACT EASY
If you want clients to get in touch with you, show them how.
Put your phone number at the top of your marketing materials
and tell them to call. When you call them, give them your
phone number again at the end of the conversation and tell
them to call. If you have a web site, put a contact form at the
bottom of your home page.

10. STAY IN TOUCH
The people you see and talk to on a regular basis are usually
the ones you trust the most. Communication isn't the only
ingredient for developing trust, but it is a critical one. If 
you sell services or high end products, a personal phone call 
is one of the best ways to answer prospects questions, and to
establish trust. Contact your prospects and clients regularly
and get feedback on what they are concerned about.

You want to convert prospects to clients and clients to repeat
clients. Use these ten marketing tactics to build trust and
you'll find more prospects buying your products and services.

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Charlie Cook is President of In Mind Communications in 
Old Greenwich, CT and can be contacted at www.charliecook.net, 
or at 203-637-1118. To get the free marketing guide, and sign up 
for the 'More Business' ezine, full of practical marketing tips, 
visit www.charliecook.net 

DOWNLOAD OF INTEREST
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This week the download of interest comes to you from Microsoft. As
we've become all too accustomed to, Microsoft has found another in
a long series of bugs and has released a few patches to help close
the holes in their operating systems and office products. Anyone 
on a Windows XP based system should run their Windows Update right 
after reading this newsletter. Whenever one of these updates comes
out it is a race against the clock. Basically, Microsoft has said 
that there is a problem and details what the problem is. This will
give all the virus writers out there a little time to find ways to
exploit these holes in systems that haven't been patched properly.
The majority of viruses out there are spread because people don't 
take the time to update their systems and fix the known security 
problems out there, don't let yourself become a victim. All of the
patches are absolutely free and are automatically applied to your
system so there really is no reason not to run the updates. Sure, 
it may take a few minutes out of your day but this really isn't a
good reason to put it off. Consider yourself warned. If you aren't
sure how to run the Windows Update, you can just point your browser
to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and the Microsoft server will
figure out where to send you automatically. Please folks, just get
on this and make the necessary updates. I'm sure that most of you
remember being pounded by email over the past few months. You know
why that happened? It's because people didn't apply the patches to
their systems and you ended up paying the price.

 
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