The First Step to Gaining New Customers For Your Small Business

One of the biggest advantages a small business person has is his ability to be a friend to his customers, to help them in a personable way to solve their problems. By setting the example for your staff or co-employees to follow, you are creating an opportunity for them to do a better job of serving customers.

Theodore Levitt, one of the national experts on customer service, says that “our customers want to have a business relationship with the people they buy from.” Our customers want to feel special. They want to know that they are not just another number or some vague entity. Being in a small business, you have a golden opportunity to distinguish your company from the rest of the competition by being a friend.

There is a man from my hometown by the name of Joe Slaga, owner of PJ’s, a baseball card shop. When customers enter his store, he makes them feel comfortable by his easy manner. He is a good people person. He realizes that people don’t want to be badgered into buying anything. By joking and exchanging stories with them about their favorite sports celebrity, he devel­ops a friendly relationship with all the adults and children who come into the store. He has made it a favorite stopping place for many children to bring their parents to browse and buy.

There are other baseball card shops in the area, but his is the busiest. How does he do it? Simple. He makes it a point to be a friend to his customers.

What are some of the things you, your staff and co-workers can do in your small business to be a friend to your customers? Hold a brain­storming session and make a list of seven ideas. Circle the top three ideas and take steps for implementing them this week.

How to increase your brand and exposure online with business directories:

With my first online business I made some very simply mistakes that cost my marketing budget, below is how to advoid these mistakes.

First, if you own a small business you best think about getting a website, this is one of the best ways to market you business and increase sales.

Simple is better, just keep in mind that the website should look professional so that it add to your brand awareness and not make your company look like a 2007 venture.

Now you have a clean website, why is no-one coming to it?

The quickest way to gain visitors is by Google AdWords, please do not make the same mistake I did and start with a large budget and not keep tweaking you keywords.

If you are paying on a cost per click basis, you want to make sure that the keywords will work to convert visitors into customers, keep in mind that not all traffic is equal, you want to target your visitors to people who will be interested in your services/products and not broad keyword that might not convert.

Add your website with keywords to online directories, stay away from the ones who are link spams and directories that do not look professional, you want to ensure that you site is listed on sites that are better or equal to yours.

Keep looking at your stats to see how customers find you website and how they use your website.

Ask you customers where did you find us, this will give you a good idea of how customers who are interested in your products/services will look for your website.

Keep up to date with networking sites, talk with your customers in forums and networking site, encourage your customers to provide feedback on how you can improve and what they like about your current website