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Guest post by: Helen Dowling Become an Author

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Xenophobia is the fear of strangers or foreigners so this article is all about turning strangers into friends into customers and it's something that you're going to have to do if you want to succeed in your business. You're going to meet people all the time - whether it's from networking, on the internet, through making calls or through having a press release appear in the local paper. And some of those people we won't know and they won't know us.

So, how do we turn them from complete strangers to someone who knows what we do?

Well, this is the first fundamental step in terms of marketing. You need to tell the world what you do so people become aware of you. As someone put it the other day "it's all very well having a mobile phone, but if no-one knows the number, no-one will ring you!"

Exactly the same is true of marketing. We all know how easy it is to forget someone's name if we've just met or encountered them once...it's only when we get to know them that we remember them.

Likewise in marketing, if they only come across your business the once, it's unlikely that they'll remember you. However, if they keep coming across your business, they'll get to know who you are and what you do.

How could they keep coming across you? Well, if you've been to a networking event once, go again and keep going. If someone has downloaded a newsletter from your site, keep communicating with them by email. If a customer previously used your services and hasn't for a while, contact them to see how it's going.

It takes an average of between 7 and 11 times for someone to really remember who you are and get to know you, so you need to keep touching base with them.

Once they know who you are and what you do, your next problem is to turn them from a friend into a customer. How do you do this?

Well, just because they know what you do, there is no guarantee that they will actually need or want to use your products or services. You need to find out how interested they are in what you do.

You need to ask people questions and really listen to the answers and also offer them products and services that appeal to their needs. This is all part of good selling practices.

If, in all of your marketing, you go by the adage of "it's not about you, it's about them" - in other words, it's not about what you want, it's about what your customers want, you'll find that you won't go far wrong and you will succeed in turning strangers into friends and eventually into customers.

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