Attached is a simple template you can use to help you get organized with business expenses as well as budget. You obviously don’t have to use it if you don’t want to, but the file is something I use personally and should give you a good idea of what to do if you’re creating your own. So… let’s all get organized and invest our time wisely to make 2008 a HUGE year for all of us!
expense-and-budgeting-spreadsheet.xls
In almost any business it’s vital to keep in contact with your customers and respond to their needs promptly. I can’t tell you how many potential sales are missed because the business owner (us or others, for that matter) failed to contact a potential partner and customer or send the information they asked for…
As well, according to the Pareto principle, 80% of the prospects you come in contact with may not buy your products, use your services or join your business opportunity when you first present it to them… likely due to bad timing, need to develop further trust or other factors. In light of that, keeping in touch with these prospects and developing relationships with them over the long term can pay huge dividends. However, it can be a cumbersome management process if we don’t have the right tools.
An e-mail autoresponder is an automated e-mail system that delivers information in a personalized fashion to the recipients and then follows up with them, over the coming days, weeks and months, all in autopilot. The most obvious benefits include serving customers faster and more efficiently, saving a ton of your own time by not having to copy, paste and customize each e-mail, and keeping constant contact with customers/subscribers.
3 important features of autoresponders include:
1) Personalization - Send personalized e-mails to recipients that call them by their frist name, and also merge custom fields in the body of the e-mail to fit their specific needs. This alone saves you a ton of time and gives your better responses because the recipients love hearing their names in the e-mail instead of just “Hi everyone” or “Hi gang” or whatever you say when you mass e-mail. Some e-mail programs offer this feature, but the key benefit of a hosted autoresponder is that it’s on 24/7! Most people don’t have their computer on 24/7 just so that their e-mail programs can serve the e-mails on time.
2) Subscription - Send time-delayed e-mail to the people who subscribe to your mailing list via the opt-in form or by your manual entry. The time-delayed e-mail can be customized to be delivered within specific time frame from the day the subscriber info is added. This is perfect for marketing a product, service, or business opportunity like ours.
3) Broadcasting - Send INSTANT, PERSONALIZED e-mail to your entire list to introduce a new product, service, or simply wish someone happy birthday!
And there are 2 basic types of autoresponder service available in the market today:
1) The first type is a subscription-based service, where the service provider offers the complete, turnkey solution as soon as you sign up. Companies such as Aweber,Get Reponse and iContact.
2) The second type is a self-hosted service, where the user buys the autoresponder software and hosts the software on his/her own server. The cost is one-time only. A good example is Sellwide Follow Up Mailing List Processor (this is what I’m using now).
In summary I have 4 recommendations and you can’t go wrong with any of them since you’ve got everything to gain!
1. Aweber
2. Get Reponse
3. iContact
4. Sellwide Follow Up Mailing List Processor (this is what I’m using at the moment)
Sellwide Follow Up Mailing List Processor Advantages:
Aweber, Get Reponse or iContact Advantages:
Sellwide Follow Up Mailing List Processor Disadvantages:
Aweber, Get Reponse or iContact Disadvantages:
Owning a domain name (web site address) is probably the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to increase the professional presence of you and your business on the web. As we engage in conversations with friends, family and new contacts they may be interested in knowing what your domain name is so they can browse the site and order products at the comfort of their own homes. Now I’m not in any way suggesting that the simple act of handing out your domain name is going to create a successful sale, but having your own domain name is crucial in creating a more professional image.
In our industry, we have replicated website addresses such as
http://jchen.qhealthzone.com/ or jchen18.qbeautyzone.com
They’re a bit difficult to recite over the phone or for customers remember. So instead of that, buy a domain name and redirect it to the personal website created by the corporation is a much more effective way to go. The last thing you want to have happen to you is investing time and effort to prep your customer for making a purchase only to have him or her forget YOUR domain name when they finally decide to buy at a later time. Image if they type in “jchen13″ or “jchen15″ instead of “jchen18″… Someone else gets their sale instead of you! To illustrate this go to
http://www.simplyhealthzone.com
You see that as soon as you hit the ‘Enter’ key the site automatically goes to the actual retail page. This is much easier to remember, looks more professional and prevents lost sales because your customers couldn’t remember the exact domain name! I have personally lost some sales because of a typo on my customer’s part, and I don’t plan on making the same mistake again. Another example is
http://www.teamglobalnet.com/ and http://www.tgnt.biz/
So how do you buy domain names? Well, it’s incredibly simple and affordable. Network Solutions, one of our partner stores, offers domain name registration, though for some reason the partner store link has been unavailable for quite some time now. However, there are obviously many other companies that offer domain name registration. Just make sure you pay with the Visa card from your business so you can still earn points. Two of the most reliable companies are
1) www.GoDaddy.com
and
I am currently using www.GoDaddy.com because it offers a better overall value, is the biggest domain registrar and has good customer service. After buying your domain, you can activate the ‘Domain Forwarding’ in your account. Typically a domain costs $10 or less per year. I strongly encourage anyone to try this, especially those who plan to give out your personal retail site addresses to customers/potential customers. It makes a HUGE difference. I’m not sure when Network Solutions is going to be back, but I wouldn’t wait if I were you because the faster you have your new domain name the earlier you can promote it with confidence.