Thought this might be interesting!!!

In these days of really hard work, uncertainty and crisis (probably more fear and panic than real problems), it’s good to remember the following words from

Albert Einstein:

Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things. A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress.

Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born form the dark night. It’s in crisis that inventive is born, as well as discoveries, and big strategies. Who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome. Who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent, and is more respectful to problems than to solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis.

The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There’s no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead.

Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.

I had this sent to me from Carsten pro- Plan interactivo S.L, wwwpro-plan.eu and thought you might find this interesting.

Generating Business Part Two:

The Next 10 Questions You Should Ask Yourself:

Today I want to share with you the next 10 great ways to highlight some instant ways for you to generate more enquiries, boost your profit and grow your business.

The following 10 questions will help you to understand where your business is succeeding and where it isn’t so that you can take the necessary action to produce rapid results. Effort will be required on your part if you wish to take advantage of those extra profits you could be missing out on.

Did you know it takes 99% of effort to launch a rocket but only 10% to keep it flying?

1 How much time each year do your sales team spend learning leading edge sales skills?

2 You should have an excellent lead generation in place, Do you have this in place ?

3 Do you have an ongoing communication with qualified leads consisting of letters and emails and phone calls?

4 Do your customers ever send you testimonials and do you use them?

5 Do you have an effective referrals system in your work place?

6 There are lots of ways of obtaining referrals, can you name three?

7 You should offer something of value to your website visitors in exchange for their contact details; do you make this offer to them?

8 You should know how to write a press release as this will grab the attention of the person reading it; do you know how to do this?

9 You should personalise all emails newsletters and letters, is this something you are doing?

10 You should send regular email communications to your customers and prospective customers do you do this?

If you have answered NO to any of the above, implement the changes today and begin to earn those missing profits that your company needs.

WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT TEN GREAT WAY TO BOOST YOUR PROFIT AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS.

Dave Edwards www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com
How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors!

Generating Business Part One:

Ask Yourself These 10 Questions:

Today I am going to share with you 10 great ways to highlight some instant ways for you to generate more enquiries, boost your profit and grow your business.

The following 10 questions will help you to understand where your business is succeeding and where it isn’t so that you can take the necessary action to produce rapid results.

These questions are what you should ask yourself, give them plenty of time and thought and you will be surprised at the results you can achieve. This would be a good time for me to point out that should you answer NO to any of these questions, these are areas of your business where you are losing out on those all important PROFITS.

All is not lost, don’t bury your head in the sand or crawl under a stone this exercise should motivate you into taking action with your marketing.

1 You should be able to name three things that set you apart from your competition (Can you?)

2 You should demonstrate the benefits your products will have for your customers in all your promotional literature (do you?)

3 You should use telemarketing to attract new potential customers (do you?)

4 You should use Direct Mail to attract new potential customers (do you?)

5 You should have a good relationship with a media so that you can acquire some good PR to build name awareness (do you have this relationship?)

6 You should use Direct Response adverts that will make your potential customers jump to action (do you use this type of advert?)

7 You should not advertise in the media just because your competitors advertise there, you should try something different (do you?)

8 You should always converse with your customers in ways they can understand (do you?)

9 You should test search engine advertising (have you?)

10 You should test Internet Advertising (Have you?)

If you have answered NO to any of the above, implement the changes today and begin to earn those missing profits that your company needs.

WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT TEN GREAT WAY TO BOOST YOUR PROFIT AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS.

Dave Edwards www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com
How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors!

Key Ingredients to Marketing Success

Six Ways to Marketing Success:

It’s FREE and you can do this RIGHT NOW, take a step back and look at your business from outside the box, this way you will see how you can Market your Business in a totally different way, ‘‘in a way your competitors aren’t doing it”.

Most businesses market their products in the same way as their competitors, they are all searching for exactly the same customers. did you know that at any given time between 3% and 7% of people are looking for your products or services.

Let me explain:

If you open your local newspaper (the one you advertise in) yours and your competitors adverts will look the same, sure you all have your company details on your advert which differentiates you a little but on the whole your customers are going to choose you and three of your competitors for their quotation. What you are doing is Marketing in a Vacuum. Have you ever tried advertising for the 93% to 97% of people that have not even thought about your product yet.

Marketing outside the vacuum will remove the competition and make your customers take decisive action. Most businesses are lemmings when it comes to advertising its all follow the leader, like something in their heads saying they have to market in the same way that everyone else in their profession markets. So all the electricians advertise in the local paper, all the hairdressers advertise in the yellow pages and all the double glazing companies use telemarketing and so on.

95% of businesses only market their products in one or two ways, it might be the local newspaper, or perhaps its Direct Mail. Do you know how much potential business you might be missing only using a couple of ways to Market your Business? Imagine what might happen to your business if you used Five or Six ways to promote your product or services, I know your thinking what about the cost (it’s already costing me a fortune on advertising) but i’m talking about ”How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors”

What will happen, if you use more cost effective ways to market your business is that you will achieve what everyone continually tells me is ‘impossible, ”You’ll increase your profits by 50% or 100%”.

Lets have a look at some cost effective marketing methods you can use to dramatically boost your business:

Here’s my list, of the top six most cost effective marketing methods you can use to boost your business profits, Pick a couple of them and MAKE A DECISION to add them to your marketing mix in the next few weeks ahead:

Direct Mail
Internet Marketing
Email Marketing
Strategic Alliances
Referral Systems
PR

Step outside the box, use, test and measure your chosen methods.

Remember most other businesses are not willing to do this, it’s all too much effort and they’re more interested in moaning and blaming today’s economic climate because their businesses are suffering. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX and get your success story on the road.

Dave Edwards www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com
How To Get NEW Customers On A Tight Budget – And Get People To Do Business With YOU Rather Than Your Competitors!

Marketing Letters “GET THEM OPENED”

Get YOUR marketing letters opened:

Today I would like to share with you a few facts about how to get your Marketing Letters (mail shots) opened.

These simple facts will ensure that your Marketing Letters provide an increase in future response rates, which in turn will generate more enquiries and More Sales.

All companies that send out mail shots are looking to generate more business or at least more enquiries but in order for this to happen your Marketing Letters need to be read, you could have the best offer your customers have ever seen but if your letter doesn’t get opened your prospective client will never know just how good your offer really is. There are lots of marketing gurus out there that will give you good advice about what to write in your Marketing Letters, but surprisingly not all of them know how to get your letters opened.

Read Mail vs. Junk Mail:

Have you ever picked up your post in the morning and separated it into two piles, usually one pile consists of flyers, post card offers and anything that looks like junk which ends up in the BIN!! the other pile consists of bills (easily identified) and letters that look you want to read them. Today I was talking with my Brother in Law He’s a Postman and I said to him I wish I had a job like yours where I could finish at lunch time. His reply was I would be home a lot earlier if it wasn’t for all the junk mail I had to deliver.

Junk Mail is easy to SPOT:

This morning I had a letter that nearly ended up in the bin, but at a second glance I realised that it was a Marketing Letter that was selling something I was interested in buying, I won’t bore you with what the product was but I will share with you the reason why it nearly went straight out with the trash, you see when I looked at the letter my name and address was spelt wrong and it was printed on a white self stick label, most mail shot companies use this method because the computer will print labels out more quickly than you hand writing the name and address on an envelope, any letter that uses this type of label looks like junk and usually end up in the bin.

Companies sending out mail shots like this will suffer in the fact that thousands of their Marketing Letters never get opened infact their letters meet with huge amounts of unnecessary resistance from potential customers, Just because their letters look like junk mail.

Make sure that YOUR marketing letters are opened:

Follow these few simple steps and I guarantee your Marketing Letters will be opened.

Be sure to correctly address the letter you are sending.

Do some research and make sure you have a name on the envelope (Don’t write your letter to the Director or any other title) and make sure your envelope is spelt correctly and displayed clearly.

Don’t use ‘window envelopes’ with the name and address of the recipient printed onto the enclosed letter.

Refrain from having any offers or message on your envelope it could result in as much as 100% of your letters remaining unopened.

Don’t use CAPITAL LETTERS and always send your letters with a stamp not a franking system.

My best advice is do some research, for the next week scrutinise all the mail you have delivered to your address, Which would you open? and which of your mail goes straight to the bin? Learn from this and make sure that in future you give some thought to your Marketing Letters. Remember the bottom is that you need to make sure that your future customers are reading your mail shots, and when they do make sure there is a COMPELLING OFFER inside that makes them TAKE ACTION!!

If you find this information useful please forward it to anyone you think might also find it interesting, or tell them visit my website www.harlequinsalesandmarketing.com and subscribe to my newsletter and I will also send them a FREE copy of my short e-book;
“10 ways to Success in business”

U.K. Advertising “Make It Pay”

Advertising seems to be every one’s favourite way of wasting money:

So let’s take a look at how you can get Better Results from your advertising budget.

In my experience there are better and more cost effective ways of marketing than advertising. This said, most businesses I know depend heavily on advertising and therefore give little thought to finding more cost effective ways to market their business. Advertising is the most expensive of all marketing options so business owners should look at getting their advertising right before spending their marketing budget. If  however you are advertising already, or plan to in the future, here are my thoughts on what works and what doesn’t.

Don’t Advertise if it Isn’t Working.

If this sounds silly or obvious you would be amazed at how many businesses advertise because that’s what they have always done or even worse because the competition does it, most don’t even know if their advertising works or if it doesn’t.

Measure the results of all your advertising its really important. Many businesses just allocate a certain amount of money to an advertising budget, they spend this budget every year…and only have a vague idea if the adverts are working or if there not, this is absolutely barmy. If your advertising works then use it on a larger scale if it doesn’t work STOP it immediately and use the money on one of dozens of other marketing strategies that can bring you a better return on your investment.

Use Direct Response Advertising, other forms of advertising are institutional (or brand) advertising and are designed to build brand awareness, If you’re a small or medium sized business, brand advertising is almost certainly a waste of your advertising budget.

For small or medium size businesses your advertising needs to produce a profitable response, so stick to Direct Response Advertising and watch your profits grow
RATE CARDS:
Now there’s a laugh! I often chuckle to myself when newspaper sales executives talk about rate cards, most rate cards are far too high always negotiate a better rate is my advice. 20 to 30% less for your advertising isn’t unreasonable and can make your advertising campaign profitable rather than unprofitable and I bet your sales executive is soon back looking for more business.

Just as with direct mail the HEADLINE should be given lots of thought it will if written properly increase response greatly, don’t be tempted to use your company name as the headline think of something that will grab your customers attention, remember also that the copy of your advert needs to communicate with the person reading it.

Here are some other advertising tips:
If possible place your advert on an early right hand page. This has been tested again and again. When you read a newspaper or magazine your eyes are drawn to the right hand page as you flick through, so statistically more people will see your ad if it’s on the right hand page, use Bold or Underline text in your advert especially on any offers

like I said in my experience many businesses are wasting money on ineffective advertising compared to other cost effective means like (Direct Mail, Telephone Marketing, Direct Sales, Email, Internet, Referrals, Strategic Alliances etc) But done properly advertising can be highly profitable and a good mix with other marketing forms.

Hope you found this interesting if you did pass it on or leave your comments:

Feel free to forward this information on to anyone who will find it useful. If they want to receive my emails, they need to go to harlequinsalesandmarketing.com/newsletter.