Developing Your Core Clients

Do you rely on repeat business from current and past clients? If so, have you fully developed your core clients full potential?

Instead of focusing on your “once in awhile” clients, you should focus on the strong base of clients  -- the clients that are and will continue to be long-term clients. Research shows that in most business to business companies that 20% of clients produce 80% of profits.

Follow this five-step approach to help your company develop core clients.

1. Identify the most profitable clients.
2. Learn each client’s needs and wants.
3. Analyze the offerings they need and use.
4. Focus marketing efforts on the profitable client types.
5. Monitor satisfaction levels.

Identify the Most Profitable Clients

Go in to your accounting records and look at the revenues each client generates, what it costs to sell to them and to service them.  This will help you discover which clients are profitable and which ones are unprofitable. Unprofitable clients are those clients that cost you more to market, attract and satisfy.

Learn Their Wants and Needs

Once you have decided on your core group of clients that you want to focus on, the best approach to find out your clients wants and needs is to ask them. Some ways to gather this information is through written surveys, focus groups, face-to-face visits and in-depth interviews.

Analyze the Offerings They Need and Use

Do your products and/or services meet the needs of your customers? Are there some services that your clients do not utilize? Are there some services that you could begin offering to meet their needs better?

Focus Marketing on the Profitable Client Type

The feedback you receive from your profitable clients should be the basis of your marketing efforts.

Monitor Satisfaction Levels Religiously

To keep ahead of the game, you need to understand your clients future needs, what will they want to do or need in the future. You can do this a few ways, (1) by asking the right questions and listening during your every day interactions and meetings with your clients, or (2) by using focus groups or user groups for feedback on what upcoming trends your customers are paying attention to or interested in.

Source: Selling in Deep Carpet: Developing Core Clients by Clare G. Ross

Item of the Week: Promotional Products

What better way to say thank you to your customers for their business then giving them a gift to show them your appreciation. Wouldn't it be nice to give them something that will be both useful and will also remind them of your company every time they use the product? A few lower priced items that I have had success with in the past have been as follows:

• Tape Measures - You can never have enough tape measures!
• Stainless Steel Water Bottles - These water bottles are durable and will keep your drinks cold all day long. I personally use one everyday!
• Multi-Tools - The guys love them. A screwdriver and a level all in one place! These are so small that they can fit your glove box.
• Jotters and Padfolios - A jotter can fit in someone's purse or glove department and a Padfolio is great for taking to meetings.
• Post-it-Note Cubes - These were a HUGE success. There is nothing better then walking into a clients office and seeing your post-it-note cube sitting on their desk. (HINT: Make sure your name is towards the bottom of the pile so they can see it as long as possible!)
• Stocking Hats - A great idea for winter, wouldn't you want your customers to walk around town with your logo on their hat!?

A few higher end items that I have had success with in the past have been as follows:

• Poker Set - Complete with poker chips, cards and dealer chips.
• BBQ Set - Everyone needs a heavy duty set of grilling tools for their spring and summer cookouts.
• Car Emergency Set - Jumper cables, flares...anything that you might need if you have car trouble.
• Binoculars - A great tool for nature lovers is a high end pair of binoculars!

What to Cook Bake, or in General to Make Wednesday

Spinach, Tomato, Feta & Egg Wrap

(Reipe from sparkpeople.com)

Ingredients

2 La Tortilla Factory Whole Wheat Low-Carb/Low-Fat Tortilla, Large Size 1 C. chopped fresh spinach 1-1/3 C. Egg Beaters 1-1/2 T. Athenos Red. Fat Feta Cheese 1-1/2 T. Athenos Basil & Tomato Feta Cheese 2 T. Hunt's Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes w/Garlic 4 halves sun-dried tomato in oil & spices, chopped

Directions

Spray medium sized skillet with nonstick spray and bring to medium heat. Add chopped spinach and both types of tomatoes. Stirring occasionally, cook for about 1 minute (until spinach has wilted). Add the cheese to the pan and cook for an additional 30 seconds (cheese should be melty). Removed from heat.
Spray a small skillet with nonstick spray and bring to medium heat. Add 2/3 C. of the Egg Beaters, and cook to form an egg patty (flipping and folding until firm). Remove egg patty and set aside. Cook the remaining 2/3 C. of Egg Beaters the same.
Heat tortillas in the microwave until slightly warm. Place 1/2 the veggie/cheese mixture in the center of each tortilla. Place an egg patty on top, and wrap the tortilla up envelope style (folding the sides in first, and then rolling it up from the bottom). Place the wrap in a warm oven or toaster oven (with seam side down and bake for 1 - 2 minutes (until thoroughly heated).

Number of Servings: 2

Designing Visually Pleasing Materials

Have you ever completed a design and have not been pleased with the end result? If so, it is possible that you are missing one of the four elements of design: balance, visual syntax, unity or proportion. I’m going to explain a little bit about each of these four elements.

Balance – In order to achieve balance, you should focus on optical weight. Optical weight is a visual system of measure.  Optical weight is based on the following six rules:

1. Anything located in the upper left hand quadrant of a layout has the most optical weight.
2. Large items are noticed more, seen for a longer time and remembered more.
3. Elements that are dark carry more optical weight.
4. Color conveys more optical weight than black and white.
5. White space draws attention to the other information on the page.
6. Rectangles are normal shapes, everything else conveys optical weight.

Visual Syntax – Typically a person’s eyes go in a Z pattern when looking at a piece.

So, to increase visual syntax, you should try to use a Z page layout.  You should include the “What’s in it for me” across the top, filler text in the middle and a call to action across the bottom.

Unity – There are seven elements that contribute to the unity of your piece. They are as follows:

1. Typography – try to stick to only using 2 fonts. You can have an additional font if necessary, but two is the key number.
2. Paper – The heavier the paper, the more important people perceive something is.
3. Style of Art – Don’t mix and match different styles of art.
4. Color – Don’t overdue it on colors, stick to a color scheme.
5. Size – 30% of your design should be white space. Let the content determine the size of your piece.
6. Graphic Elements – You can use repeat graphics throughout the page in order to grab people’s attention.
7. Grid – Don’t go from 1 column to 2 columns, keep things consistent.

Proportion – The underlying skeleton of your layouts.

To make your piece proportionate, you should consider whether you are going to use a one-column (newsy or important perception), two-column (formal and conservative look), or a three-column (flexible, friendly and casual look) grid layout.

The grid is the key to your design. You can make your piece graphically appealing by carrying headlines, text and graphics through two or more columns.

These are just a few things to think about when you are designing a piece. When you complete your design you should go back and make sure your document has used these four elements correctly.

Why Is Customer Service So Important?

       You are important to us, and to our business.
   Surrveys show that 85% of customers who take their business to
a new supplier, do so because of customer service issues.
   You're the reason we're in business, so it is our goal to keep you
happy with service and products you receive from us at Big Red
Printing.
   We want your products to meet and exceed your expectations
every time, and the best way to get what you want is to ask, we're
here to listen!
   If you're not sure what you want, we will be more than happy to
offer you our tips and advice.
   We'll be the first to admit that we are not perfect, but when things
go wrong, you can be sure that we'll make it right.
   You're opinion is important to us, so if you have any suggestions
on how we can serve you better please let us know.

What to Cook, Bake, or in General to Make Wednesdays

(Recipe from "Baked Perfections.com")
These cookies are every bit as delicious as they look.























S'mores Cookies
adapted from Make and Bake

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 dash of cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups miniature chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
2 Hershey bars, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, and dash of cinnamon. In a second larger bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. Push 3 to 4 marshmallows and a few pieces of hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.

Reasons Your Marketing Materials Are Going Unread

• You are using the "We-We" approach. Your marketing materials might be too "we" oriented instead of customer oriented. Your customers are interested in learning about you, but instead of talking about the new and improved equipment that you purchased, explain instead how this new equipment will benefit the customer.

• Test - Perform the "We-We" test by counting the number of times you use we in one of your marketing pieces. While it will be impossible to delete all of the we references from your literature, work to cut the number in half.

• Too much technical jargon. Depending on your audience, you should dumb-down the language in your literature if it is technical. You can have a technical person write the test for your materials, but you should always have someone in marketing, or a different department, reword the text into layman's terms.

• Test - Have someone from outside your company read your marketing materials. If they can't understand what your message is, then chances are you need to rework your wording.

• You haven't answered, "What's in it for me." You might be stating too many generalities in your literature. Be sure to focus more on the benefits instead of the features.

• No call to action. Have you ever gotten a piece of mail encouraging you to purchase a product, but the literature contained no information on how to purchase the product? Make sure you include a call to action on every marketing piece that you send out.

• Poor grammar, punctuation and lack of proofreading. This one doesn't require a lengthy explanation. Bottom line is that if people see mistakes, they will probably dismiss your marketing piece.