The Marketing launchpad - easy to read book for small business

It is based around 6 key principles including how to build your brand, low cost advertising, and the secrets of effective direct mail. It inevitably touches on the benefits of search engine optimisation and how niche marketing is far more lucrative to you than trying to be all things to all people. It is available through Amazon at a discounted price, follow this link 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marketing-Launchpad-Areas-Business-Heights/dp/1906852057/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276605243&sr=8-1 for more details.

Improving customer service will put you ahead of the competition

The customer service module takes around 3 hours on a standard 2 day To Market customer service and telephone communications training course. Here we’ve had it distilled down into around 45 minutes of the key extracts and tips. Some of the top customer service tips here have been collected from the customer service personnel (agents) who have attended the courses. And they are the professionals of course – so they should know.

In this customer service audio CD you will hear why exceptional customer service matters to the progress of any organisation, the 4 point customer development mantra – the 4 key fundamental cornerstones why in the long run professional customer service is a MUST HAVE. Andrew Seaward will guide you through some commercial realities to customer service. Then he finishes with the 15 key points which make up effective customer service – and give your customers the service they deserve. And that’s without having to go the extra mile.   Click here   http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=27 to find out more about the CD and with a couple of clicks it is easy to buy through PayPal or by using your credit card.

Telephone account management - growing business area

As one of our latest batch of audio products, we have a CD that guides you through all the things you need to know to add more customers and clients and equally importantly – keep the ones you’ve currently got.  How often do sales business models focus and reward exclusively new business accounts. You can find the audio training CD by following this link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=32

It guides you through understanding what the function of account management is, how to do the key parts of the job effectively, and how you are the single biggest factor in determining outcomes !

Interestingly, 5 out of the last 7 people who have bought this audio CD, also bought the audio CD on time management too. Running your customer portfolio is partly about being well organised yourself of course too. Find more details here http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=24 All CDs are currently £34.99 + VAT and payment is easy through PayPal. You can use your credit card too.

We came across an article by Karl Bryan the American trainer who covers this area. This is some of what he says on the subject ;

“….. many businesses focus solely on attracting new customers, but you NEED to spend a good chunk of your time retaining current and former customers.  These are people you already know to be a good sales potential. They’ve already bought from you!”

So it is important to take the time to market and sell new products to your existing and lapsed customers. Spend less time trying to sell old products to new customers, and you will see improvements in sales, customer quality and brand position. Karl Bryan offers this useful list with some added notes from us to make sure you retain your current customers ;

1. Stay in contact: This means by phone, email, e-newsletter, and in person. Keep them posted on what you are doing : new products and services etc.

2. Post-Purchase Relationship Building: This means you need to follow up with customers. Your customers need to feel  you have a genuine interest in them and their experiences with your product or service.  How many times do sales people lose interest the minute they get the order. Something as simple as a Thank
You note with your contact or customer service information can go along way in retaining a great customer.

3. Deals & Guarantees: Always offer your current customers the best deals and guarantees you have. Show them you appreciate their business and help them to get the best deals and advice. You can also do this with a preferred pricing option if their spend warrants it. It’s about making them feel special, valued. It all helps.

4. Integrity: Using good business practices and simply upholding integrity, dignity and honesty go along way with customers. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of half-hearted rubbish sales people. So the more they can trust you to do waht you say when you say you’ll do it, the more the relationship will build, and the more they will trust you.

There are three cornerstone ideas to a successful business:
. Quality product/service
. Offering useful products/services that solve a problem for or enhance the life of a customer
. Offer subjects your customers find interesting

Use this approach of educating your customers and offer them real information and insight and you will be rewarded with loyalty and success. Don’t waste all your time on new prospects while your current customers become someone else’s new accounts.

As the well known motivational speaker Jay Abraham says, “Your best prospects are your existing customers. If you’ve been putting all your marketing efforts into acquiring new customers, stop and divert some of your resources into reselling, upselling, cross-selling to those same customers.”

Good words Jay.

Vocal tone is important in your interaction with customers

The minute you walk into a shop and the person says “good morning” you know instantly whether they mean it or not !

One of our newly released audio CD titles covers the training topics of Expression, Energy and Emphasis. You can find it here http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=30.

It guides you through understanding that you can tell 40+ things about a total stranger who you can’t even see from as little as 6 words. The CD explains all of this and relates moods to colours !

We’ve also added a currency coverter to the site recently so that our customers from the United States can order easily, and know the exact price at the point of order.

For any one who books on the course we will supply the set of 3 customer service training CDs for no charge – absolutely free. Follow the link   http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=17   to see the triple pack. Individually these 3 CDs are £34.99 each, and even with the bundle pack this means you save £70.

You can view more about this customer service training programme at the To Market blog   http://www.tomarket.co.uk/blog/   where it tells you a little more about what it covers.

Customer Service training - Leicester & Northampton

But mention this article and after you’ve attended the course, they will give you the 3 CDs to help revisit the training messages about exceptional customer service as many times as you want. These 3 CDs cover the 10 major issues your customers are looking for when dealing with you. Understand the 10 key factors and you’ll be delivering the type of customer service your customers deserve and you’ll know how to exceed their expectations.

To find out more call To Market on 01858 461148.

More skills for internal sales teams

 This is a product aimed at those of you who have a team of people or individuals who deal with incoming calls, but who are nevertheless expected to sell. If you want to raise your skills, or build up your selling skills this product could help http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=31

Every phone call coming in represents an opportunity. OK, it may not always look like it – “Oh, I’m just phoning round looking for prices” or “I want to know where my goods are !” But within whatever the customer is saying there is always the seed of an opportunity.

Increasing the average order value by upselling, or switchselling the customer on to a different product if the one they want is out of stock are all important ways of ensuring you lock their business in, and don’t lose it to your competition.

Unsurprisingly most of our enquiries, orders and websites come from the English speaking world. The United States is our second biggest market. As a result and in order to make it easier for our American customers to work out the prices in dollars you will see we’ve added a click through currency converter against each of the products here.

Training CDs - ready to ship to United States

So if you’re in California,Wisconsin, New York state, Florida, Ohio, Washington, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, or Canada or any of the 50 U.S. states and you’re after some best practice advice from the U.K. on customer service, telesales or general telephone communication skills, try us out. A few clicks and the products are on their way to you.

It is a great training DVD or video and it is expensive. This is the bad news, but it is worth it, especially if your organisation is paying, and or you are able to get a fair bit of use out of it – such as using it in training programmes with many people.

Fish! dvd - the top selling training video of all time

You can watch a short clip of it around 2 minutes or so at Video Arts by following this link http://www.videoarts.co.uk/Title.aspx/FISH/FISH/FISH/

It is about the 4 key principles of good customer interaction. The 4 principles covered in the 17 minute video or DVD are

1. Play
2. Make their day
3. Be there
4. Choose your attitude

It is general good business sense and so is highly suited to customer service, telesales, customer service, contact centre, call centre, internal sales or in fact anyone who deals with customers.

Fish! is a highly recommended training product. We can also help you track it down at the best price (UK only). e-mail us info@associatedlearningsystems.co.uk for more help.

The case for training. Admittedly we sell training products so we might be seen to have an opinion on this. As customers become ever more sophisticated and demanding about what they want, so customer service becomes more important.

We came across a quote recently from the highly influential management book from the 1980s “the One Minute Manager” by Kenneth Blanchard & Spencer Johnson.

“You really have three choices as a manager. First you can hire winners. They are hard to find and they cost money. Or second, if you can’t find a winner, you can hire someone with the potential to be a winner. Then you systematically train that person to become a winner. If you are not willing to do either of the first two (and I am continually amazed at the number of managers who won’t spend the money to hire a winner or take the time to train someone to become a winner), then there is only the third choice left – prayer.” This books comes highly recommended. It is easy to read, it is written almost as a children’s book and so you will get through it in no time at all. Amazon is a good source for this book.

Follow this link to find out more http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_0_14?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=one+minute+manager&sprefix=one+minute+man

The One Minute Manager - recommended by Associated Learning Systems