Four Key Reasons Why Your Articles May Not Be Working for You.

Writing articles is a well known and highly effective marketing strategy.  You hear people talking about having built entire businesses using article marketing. The are certainly one strategy that I often recommend when talking about ways small business owners can work together.

On the other hand one comment I hear really often when discussing article writing as an alliance strategy is “I’ve tried writing articles but they just don’t seem to work.”

Do you pass the referral strategies T.E.S.T.? (Part 4)

This is the last in the four part series on making sure that you are generating endless rush of quality referrals for your business.

Over the past three weeks we have looked at:

Trust: developing trust with your referral partners

Education: providing education tools that make it easy for them to refer potential clients to you.

Support: making sure that you have systems in place that make it EASY for your referral partners to refer business to you.

The last but certainly not the least important aspect of maintaining strong referral partnerships is recognising, acknowledging and thanking your referral partners for what they do for you.

Do you pass the referral strategies T.E.S.T.? (Part 3)

This is the third in a four part series of making sure that you are generating endless rush of quality referrals for your business.

Over the past two weeks we have looked at Trust: developing trust with your referral partners Education: providing education tools that make it easy for them to refer potential clients to you.

The third element in the Referral Rush System is support. Make sure that you have systems in place that make it EASY for your referral partners to refer business to you.

Think about those business owners that you regularly refer business to. What is it about them that makes referring business to them easy?

Some of the things that probably spring to mind include:

Do You Have the “E” in YOUR Referral T.E.S.T.?

The sad fact is that many people believe that a referred lead is as good as sold and all good selling skills go out the window! Certainly a referred lead is often easier to convert than a lead that came from an advertisement. After all people prefer to buy from businesses and individuals that they know, like and trust. If a good friend referred you, then you have a little bit of trust. (Unless of course, they don’t trust the person doing the referring.) But you still have to turn the lead into a client by showing them what benefits you offer and the best way to do that is through providing a free information or education product – this could be a booklet, e-book, CD or video.  Whatever works best for your industry or profession.  Remember the idea here is to provide no strings attached valuable information, or even an experience of your products or services, not to ply your marketing message.

Do you pass the SMART Referral strategy T.E.S.T.?

Here are 4 quick questions to find out.

Trust: Obviously to earn trust you have to deliver outstanding service, but do you have strategies in place to speed up and capture the process?

Education: do you have strategies in place to educate your referral partners and raving fans on why and how they should refer you?

Support: Do you have strategies and tools in place to support and  help your referral partners and raving fans refer you?

Thanks: Do you have a thanks and recognition system in place to recognise and reward your referral partners and raving fans for referring you?

If you answered YES to all four of these questions congratulations you passed the referral strategy test.  If not check out my BLOG and start getting your SMART Referral Strategy in place.

Are you strategic alliance ready?

Over the past couple of years as I have worked with more and more business owners on growing their businesses using the power of strategic alliances I have realised that there are some business basics that they need to get into place in order to make strategic alliances really work in their businesses. I call it being strategic alliance ready. If you are not strategic alliance ready one of three things will happen.

Strategic Alliance Implementation Checklist

Strategic alliances are the most powerful marketing and business development strategy available to small business owners and entrepreneurs. However they frequently never get off the ground, and when they do they can be a costly waste of time and energy, sometimes even destroying friendships and business relationships. Why? Because the parties involved didn’t have a clear plan or strategy in place to ensure success. To make sure that your alliance strategies have the best possible chance of success make sure that you can tick ALL the boxes on this 20 point check list for EVERY Alliance Strategy you implement. If you do I guarantee strategic alliances will become your Number 1 business development and marketing strategy…

A Fantastic Alliance Opportunity

The best strategic alliance opportunities come from working with other businesses who share your target market.  Just think about how McDonalds and Disney Pictures have been able to support each other through the Happy Meal Figurines concept over the years.  That alliance leveraged the billions of advertising dollars invested by each company allowing the other company to benefit and has worked so well it lasted well over a decade.

What is your networking mindset?

Many small business owners approach networking from the mindset of sales and marketing strategy.  And it’s not surprising  – after all we are frequently told that networking works.  80% or more of business in the market place comes either directly or indirectly from networking and referrals. Traditional networking training encourages novice networkers to prepare and practice their “elevator pitch” the attention grabber that will encourage the other person to say “Tell me some more”.

Brenda’s Recipe for SMART Coffee

Networking is all about building quality relationships but how many times have you had a coffee meeting that goes absolutely nowhere?  You know how it is … an hour wasted while the other person tells you all about themselves and their business with no mention of how they may be able to help you.. Or worse still they try to sell you something whether or not you are even in the market for their products or services.

Or perhaps you meet in the hope of creating a strategic alliance, you agree that you may be able to refer business to each other, but nothing ever happens.

And then there are the ones who are there to pick your brains and you find yourself in free consulting mode.. “Hang on a second” you find yourself thinking, “My clients pay me for this information and I am buying you coffee while I give it to you for free.  What is wrong with this picture? “

If any of this sounds familiar then you may enjoy Brenda’s SMART coffee Recipe