Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! Evan Signature
Evan Carmichael Top Header
Share for a Cause









Pain Free Business 8 Ways To Make Sure Customers Want What You Sell

Written by: Kim Castle

Article Overview: I’m distressed about how many entrepreneurs and small business owners are driving themselves and their business into the ground because of the chase—running after for customers, running after new business, running after another day to keep their business open. This chase has put them into a cycle of emotional pain, even if they haven’t brought themselves to admit it…yet.

Free Download - The High Price of Gas Four Ways the Idea of Your Business Can Cost You Everything By Kim Castle
Name: Email:

Pain Free Business 8 Ways To Make Sure Customers Want What You Sell

Can I get something off my chest? Really…off my heart?
I’m distressed about how many entrepreneurs and small business owners are driving themselves and their business into the ground because of the chase—running after for customers, running after new business, running after another day to keep their business open. This chase has put them into a cycle of emotional pain, even if they haven’t brought themselves to admit it…yet.
I feel that pain. Not in a therapist sort of way, but I really do feel it. I feel it every time I speak at small business conferences, every time I teach my workshops around the country, every time I start clients on their business’ brand development. I may be sensitive to it because I used to feel it all the time myself.
It feels like constriction around your head and heart that leaves you momentarily unclear and unable to make a decision. It feels like escalating jabs that sometimes results in unexplained bouts of talking to yourself. It feels like an endless frenetic loop, like George Jetson walking his dog Astro on the treadmill, “Get me off this crazy thing!” I told you, I really feel it. I can also offer a few suggestions to help you stay clear from that cycle.
Chances are you started your business out of great idea or a great desire. Chances are you took on “the challenge” because you truly believed in your business idea. Chances are you did not think you would spend your time chasing potential customers.
There are 8 simple things you can do today to put yourself back on a successful business path paved with personal joy and financial freedom. And more importantly…keep you there.
1. Define It - Clearly identify what your product or service tangibly does for your customer in an easy-to-understand way. Your customer already is overloaded with figuring out things for themselves. They shouldn’t have to work to figure out what you do for them.
2. Believe In It - Make sure that your product or service is something you value in your own life and you truly have faith in it. Not as a means to make your house payment but from a huge desire to make something better. Not just a little bit but in a major way.
3. Craft It - Create the experience of your product or service as one your potential customers can know instantly. Think of any product or service you buy regularly and see if you can identify why. Your consumer knowledge can be put to powerful use as a business owner.
4. Institute It – Create a reliable (product or service) experience, one that customers can depend on without variation. Establish a specific sales experience, from sales associates, to affiliates, to website, to final delivery that all echo the overall experience you have clearly defined. Note: when creating a powerful consumer experience; variation is bad, innovation is good.
5. Ensure It - Make sure your product or service is deeply connected to your business from an inner perspective, not simply as a reaction to market conditions. The conditions change and your products should evolve, not become obsolete. Without internal grounding you will be forever stuck in ‘the chase’ for new products or services.
6. Innovate It - Look for new and exciting ways to deliver solutions to the problem that your product or service alleviates. The excitement of evolution alone will result in heightened desire in customers and they’ll love you for it.
7. Research It - Clearly identify who really needs your product or service. You must know your target, their demo- and psycho- graphics and more. You need to be in their ‘heads.’ A great way to start is to know yourself, remember you would use your product or service. This gives you practical working knowledge that you transfer to describe all your possible targets.
8. Translate It – Learn to translate your product and service to each target as specifically as you can. Look at the specific characteristics of each target and customize the language. You can change and refine without risk, because the product or service is truly anchored and will always reflect your brand. Don’t change the essence of the product or service, just the words you use to describe it.
This ‘inside out’ approach to product or service development will connect with customers and protect your brand. With these eight simple practices in place you can be assured that your business will evolve pain-free. You will not only experience success, but something even greater— a pure love for what you spend most of your life doing.

© Castle Montone, Limited
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can. Simply include this blurb with it: “Brand Visioneer and BrandU Co-founder, Kim Castle teaches entrepreneurs and small business owners how to turn their business ideas into a money-making marketable brand. If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank™, get started now at http://www.brandu.com/rd.cfm?id=743"

Related Articles
  No Pain/No Change...Don\\\'t Believe It - Insurance Sales Training
  Three Points of Need or Buyer Pain
  Advertising That Drives People Away
  Six secrets of copywriting that will boost sales
  Understand How Work Stress Can Affect Your Body

Home > Branding > Kim Castle > Pain Free Business 8 Ways To Make Sure Customers Want What You Sell
Article Tags: astro, bouts, business conferences, business idea, business path, chase, constriction, crazy thing, emotional pain, few suggestions, financial freedom, george jetson, great desire, head and heart, jabs, new business, personal joy, small business owners, successful business, treadmill

About the Author: Kim Castle
RSS for Kim's articles - Visit Kim's website

With nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com.

Click here to visit Kim's website
Dashed Line

More from Kim Castle
The Trouble With Taglines Why This Catchy Phrase Can Lead You Astray and What You Can Do About It
The High Price of Gas Four Ways the Idea of Your Business Can Cost You Everything
Barrier to Growth Is Change Stressing You Out by W Vito Montone
The New Face of Business Is An Old One The REAL Secret to Excelling In Business Today
Are You My Mentor


Related Forum Posts
How To Use Free Promotions For Your Internet Business? How To Use Free Promotions For Your Internet Business? - In my opinion, the most challenging task about running a successful Internet business is how to effectively market your website with low cost strategies or using free promotions. Here are some guidelines on how to acquire free Internet business promotions for your website to drive more traffic and increase your revenue: 1. If you have started to promote your Internet business, keep it constant. If you promote your site with persistence, it will catch your audience’s attention. 2. Be patient. Try each method in promotion until you acquire the best, free promotion there is. You have to accept trial and error for your Internet business to reach the top. Free And Effective Promotions To Try There are many ways for your Internet business to be seen. Here are some free Internet business promotions you could try until you find the most effective. * Free promotions such as search engines and directories would give your web site the deserved traffic you always wanted. Make a point to check your Internet business ranking to know whether or not this type of free promotion is right for you. * Make a deal with other Internet business blogs on trading links which could help both web sites. * Think about what you’ve read so far. Does it reinforce what you already know about Internet business Promotion? Or was there something completely new? What about the remaining paragraphs? Make sure to use words that could easily interest the audience. * Find free classified ads that could boost the promotion of your Internet business. These ads could be seen by other people who you are not targeting for, but may as well be interested in your services. * Free and low - cost internet banners are spread all through out the World Wide Web. Banners that pop up at the top of a page or in a separate window would automatically catch your target audience’s attention. If your Internet business and its free promotion did not work even after accomplishing these methods, analyse your website. Track down all visitors, advertisements, and transactions. Then locate errors in your Internet business blog. Upload new files to your Internet business blog continuously for audience to return for new products and services. Monitor your own Internet business to see if it’s up in the market or down. Then be ready to try the methods again and surely it will work. It has always been said that the best things in life are free. Yes they are. And as soon as your free Internet business promotion proves to the audience its worth, then you’ll believe it’s true. Tyrone Shum Free Promoter
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Top 19 Copywriting books Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
20% increase 20% increase - One of my businesses uses a system to help business owners manage customer relationships and encourage more referrals. I'm finding that this economy is making business owners take a second look at their business and it's assets (aka customers) to see how they can leverage them. Make those Customers (one-time sale) into Clients (repeat sales). I'm finding them more open to having this discussion with me and the results are speaking for itself. Everyone I've worked with so far has seen at least a 20% increase in sales or referrals within 4-6 months all done by managing an existing relationship.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.



Featured Article


Bottom Footer
Share for a Cause












Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Popular Articles

Business Coach Explains To You How To Add Value

BUILDING A HIGH PERFORMING TEAM

Ways to Improve Your Landing Page Conversions

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.