January 2010

Matching Entrepreneurs, Innovators with Facility Management

Leave a Comment / From the Desk of The Entrepreneur's Advisor, Raising Capital Best Practices /

I recently wrote an article that for Mintek that has a strong tie in for entrepreneurs, micro-enterprises and innovators. The article discusses 5 alternative ways to save energy for facilities and buildings.

Renewable Energy Sources
Renewable Energy Sources

All of the energy saving alternatives not only apply to small business but the 4th suggestion also presents an opportunity to entrepreneurs and innovators to find a place to test and showcase their innovations. For the astute inventor partnering with an established company may also be a path to funding. Think about it ! Read the full article now

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Why You Must Exceed Your Customers Expectations

3 Comments / From the Desk of The Entrepreneur's Advisor /
Are Your Customer Smiling?=

Best Practices Means Exceeding Customer Service Expectations

Every business has customers and they have a choice with whom they do business with. Failure to recognize this fact even if you have a relative monopoly on the market will ultimately spell disaster for your company.

Best practices for customer service will vary across industry and are dependent the product or the service sold. Establishing great customer service programs all start with asking similar questions. Ten questions to begin with are:

  1. Why did the customer buy from you?
  2. Does that need still exist?
  3. How often does your company stay in contact with customers?
  4. What is the competition offering?
  5. How price sensitive are your customers?
  6. Do you establish personal relationships with your customers?
  7. How often are you spamming them with emails, newletters and other unwanted information?
  8. What is you loss client ratio?
  9. Do your customers tell you about problems or do they just not purchase again?
  10. How often do you do customer satisfaction surveys or problem resolution follow-up?

Great customer service requires a commitment from the top of an organization in order effect a cultural change. Most importantly, the culture of your business must be adjusted to recognize that all things being equal, businesses must exceed their customer’s expectations as just meeting customer expectations is not a strong enough hook to keep them. Read the full article now

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Measuring Blogging and Inbound Marketing

1 Comment / From the Desk of The Entrepreneur's Advisor, Stuff you should know /
Think Through Your Ideas
Think Through Your Ideas

I read a lot and on a recent Hubspot discussion forum (sorry, but you need to have a log in to see the entire discussion and thread) the question was asked “Is Inbound Marketing a Hoax?” The question arose because some people do not seem to see results as quickly as others.

A portion of this discussion is being shared because it contains important criteria for measuring success and I am mentioned several times. 5 Key points include:

“Inbound Marketing is the only marketing that can be 100% measured.”

Source: Chris Kluis

Patience– Results may vary but it takes anywhere from 3 months to 9 months to generate leads. This is in-line with the average time it takes a business to become viable which is 12-36 months. Businesses must be built from the ground up and this takes time. Run away from anyone promising you instant success or money. Write Good Content. Good content rules over fluff as potential leads prefer to make sure you are serious about your website and the information you blog or put on your site. Take the time to do it right. Have Realistic Expectations. Build your budget, your marketing plan from the ground up. This means you know approximately how many leads it takes to generate a sale, what it will take to generate those leads (blogs, promotions, networking, articles and web-traffic). Big ticket sales are harder to get and take more time and more effort.

How many leads does it take?

((Cost of Tools)+(Cost of Employees)+(Cost of Marketing Exp))/(Avg Value of Customer)=(Break-even Customers) Read the full article now

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