The common belief is that in the age of email, cell phones and Facebook that all the “old” business tactics can be thrown out of the window. It’s true that modern businesses need to adapt to the times and using the internet and all the new multimedia tools is an important part of marketing your business effectively. The truth is that even with web cams, conference calls and all the latest and greatest online facilities, the need for physical contact is still there. One-on-one business meetings is (and will always be) one of the best ways to do business.

When 2 people meet face to face, there is a “chemistry” or a dynamic that you simply cannot get over the phone or even over a conference call. It is this quality that makes very successful business people what they are. Call it charm or charisma or influence – it doe not matter. What matters is that the importance of getting away from the computer can do wonders for your business.

While most people are on the email all day long, you can really distinguish yourself from your competition by doing business face to face. One very big problem with modern media is that it can provide and easy escape for anyone. Saying no in an email and saying no to someone;s face are 2 very different things.

Building rapport with a business prospect is very difficult over the phone and nearly impossible over email. To really influence people you need that energy and chemistry that is only there when you meet face to face. Doing business on your Blackberry and email is nameless. Its faceless and impersonal and makes you disappear into the abyss of the other 10 million emails that we all receive all day long.

Business is all about building relationships and building relationships on Twitter is hardly the kind that will last a lifetime. Long term business success comes from building solid relationships with people who know, like and trust you. This simply cannot be done on your Blackberry. So, get out there. Meet your clients and show them who you are. Resist the laziness of just sending another email and call them. get to know them and show them that you are a business that cares about people.

Are you thinking of becoming a physician assistant? See my blog to read more about medical assistant careers.

Attracting Prospects, Converting to Customers, Leveraging for referrals and Retaining as clients.

Attracting prospects. Attracting Prospects is vitally important to the life blood of any business success. Whatever means you use to attract prospects, don’t be boring and like everyone else. Be creative, bold, unique and exciting. What makes you business different and more appealing than your competition in the market place? When you answer this quesion you have the beginning of a great marketing campaign.

The number one way of attracting new prospects is “word of mouth” from your present happy, satisfied and loyal customers. This is why the most important thing you you do in your business is to make sure your employees, your product and service are excellent. The Stew Leonards Grocery Store in Norwalk Ct has a sign etched in stone that reads, OUR POLICY Rule #1. The customer is always right. Rule # 2. When the customer is wrong, refer to Rule # 1. His employees are well trained, have a positive attitude, helpful and live by this rule. Go to his web site and see how he started and what taking care of customers can do for your business.

Some ways of attracting prospects:

Today you have to have a good Web Site. Targeted Direct Mail for your business and web site. Targeted E-mail campaigns. Newspaper, Magazine advertising. Radio and TV advertising. Coupons. Good Signage. Networking groups as well as internet social networking. Cold calling and it can be fun if done in the right frame of mind. Always, always and always capture and build a data base of your prospects, customers, clients or patients contact information including e-mail address.

Converting – Prospects to Customers is the art helping them buy. Jeffery Gitomer, speaker and author of many books on sales says, and I agree, “People Hate to be Sold but Love to Buy”. Sign up for his free ezine at gitomer.com. Most business owners don’t like this part of the business, but this is so important to your success and you have to be constantly converting prospects to Customers ( Clients or Patients). Train all your employees in sales and excellent customer service. A great example of this is the Apple store. You can go into any Apple store and everyone is helpful, friendly, with up energy. They don’t try to sell you anything but you want to buy. If you and your employees are helpful, friendly, have a yes attitude and believe in your product or service then this shouldn’t be that difficult. When you think about it everything we do requires some form of persuasion, whether it’s trying to persuade someone to your point of view, your suppliers/vendors for better terms or the Banker for a line of credit. Learn the art of persuasion or fail, so get good at it. And it begins with a great attitude.

Leveraging – Customers for referrals. Once you have converted the prospect then the next step is to make sure your customers get what you promised when you persuaded them to buy or use your services. If their experience with you business is as good or better than you promised and you go the extra mile to make sure they are blown away, then they will be delighted to recommend your business to others. Don’t shy away from asking customers for referrals even testimonials. Here is where the art of persuasion is important to your business again.

Retaining – Customers, Clients or Patients. Stay in touch with them. “Out of sight, out of mind”. Develop a survey form and send out or put in every package to find out how you did in their eyes. Give some incentive for them to return the survey. This is so important to the success of your business that it is amazing how few businesses do it. You will be surprised how many customers will returned them. Always call and thank them. If they had a great experience and tell you about it, you have the makings of a testimonial or referral. This is a good time to ask if you can use their comments in your marketing material. If the experience was bad then you have an opportunity to correct the problem, apologize, tell them how you corrected the problem and how much you appreciate their business. You might want to make an adjustment in their purchase or next order.

What is analysis paralysis? What is the negative impact of experiencing analysis paralysis? “Analysis paralysis is “an informal phrase applied to when the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits”. It stems from self-sabotaging beliefs, including the following:

- Once I have gathered this information, found this fact, or make this list a bit longer, then I will be ready to tackle this project or task, or make this change.
- No matter what I attempt, it will never be ‘good enough’ to meet my or others’ standards or expectations.

Analysis paralysis can occur, for example, when you decide that you want to create a product or service offering that will solve all of the world’s problems – i.e. it is better, faster, cheaper, and uses the latest gadgets, tools, technology, and buzzwords. Since accomplishing this will be virtually impossible, it will allow you to procrastinate making a final decision.

What are the top 7 causes of analysis paralysis?

1. It is easier to do research than to implement your product or solution: it is safe and often successful and therefore confidence boosting, while acting on the research is fraught with the possibility of failure, stress, or pressure.
2. Lack of goals
3. Conflicting goals
4. Risk avoidance, fear of making a mistake
5. Too many learning curves at once, causing incessant revisiting of prior work
6. Creative speculation, when discovery and definition are required
7. Insistence on completing all analyses, before designing your workshop, writing your marketing copy, etc.

What are the 12 negative impacts of analysis paralysis?

1. You work and work, and see no product or results
2. You begin to lose sight of why you were working in the first place
3. You miss the opportunity to take risks and receive feedback about the quality of your work
4. You meet fewer people, including prospective clients, joint and referral partners, and suppliers
5. You try fewer new strategies and you, your business and your income consequently grow less
6. You become controlled by fear and disempowered
7. You become trapped by your problems and in your own individual ideas
8. You end up paying for this over-analysis – in money, energy, time, health, happiness and success
9. The clients you are best suited to help do not get to meet you
10. Your personal relationships suffer
11. Your health dwindles
12. Other times it can be ignorance: that you do not know that you could hire someone else to do your drudgery work

To avoid getting stuck in analysis paralysis, select one or two of the seven tips outlined below, and apply them for the next few months, until they become internalized. While you are at it, enjoy the cha-lle-nge of moving from analysis paralysis to realizing your business’ vision!

Top 7 tips of how to not lose sight of, and realize your business vision

1. Do enough research and analysis to know how to build your various plans: i.e. financial, business, marketing, referral, repeat business, etc. For instance, market research would entail finding out whether people want to buy the service or product you want to sell, and the price they are willing to pay for it. Then stop the analysis. Make an informed decision about what you believe will work. Create and implement the plans, and tweak them as you see fit.
2. Quickly figure out “why” you are not doing the work. That is, answer the following: “I am afraid to…, and I scare myself by imagining that…” (E.G. increase my rates, make a decision about what product to run with next, etc.). Realize that you (not others) are the ones creating the fear! E.G. I want to increase my rates (or begin charging for my business offerings) but I scare myself by imagining that I will have no clients as a result. Then make the decision and/or do the work.
3. Look for the simplest solution. That is, pick something you can do and do quickly, so that you can get on with the other things you really need to do. Then do that thing professionally and well.
4. Challenge your inner critic (or skeptic) or gremlins, who keep telling you that you cannot, you do not want to, you do not feel like it, you will fail, you are not good enough, etc. Show your mind that you are the boss, not it. This will increase your confidence dramatically, to the point where the little voice in your head will get increasingly quieter and have little effect on you.
5. Remember that everything is uncomfortable at the beginning. However, if you stick with it, you will eventually move through your Financial Discomfort Zone and succeed. Then you will have become a “bigger” person.
6. Accept and love yourself unconditionally, for who you truly are.
7. Get into the habit of living in and outside of your business instead of just surviving, or more bluntly, dying. To gain a fuller appreciation of how these words differ, refer to the six examples provided below.

Example 1
Thriving: You do your best and praise yourself for all of your efforts.
Surviving: You do things only because you think you need to, have to, or should.

Example 2
Thriving: You give up feeling guilty and worrying.
Surviving: You feel guilty or worry, for no reason at all.

Example 3
Thriving: You trust that everything will work out fine.
Surviving: You doubt yourself.

Example 4
Thriving: You ask the people in your life to help you through difficult times and clarify how they could to this.
Surviving: You do not ask for support when you need or want it.

Example 5
Thriving: You are grateful for the good in your life, and adopt an attitude that there is plenty to go around.
Surviving: You wish your life could be different, and yet do nothing about it, except to maintain the status quo.

Example 6
Thriving: You say “yes” to you, including your creative genius!
Surviving: You deny your creativity.

To write a fundable business plan, one which does its part to convince investors or lenders to put money into your business, you must think like funders. Consider these top questions which funders will ask themselves as they consider business plans to get into their mindset.

How Can I Tell If the Market Exists?

A funder cares deeply whether a market (and a large enough one) exists for the proposed product or service. They look to see if competitors and substitutes already exist, which proves to some extent that the business opportunity exists. Without this, they will look to research on customer needs, demographics and the industry to prove that there is room for a new product or service here. The more support an entrepreneur can provide in their business plan, the easier they make it for funders to do this leg work.

How Can I Tell If the Strategy Will Work?

Next, funders will wonder whether the chosen strategy for the business will work. If it seems to be incorrect or not carefully thought out, it is not necessarily the end of the road for the entrepreneur. If the funder is relatively hands on and trusts the core ability of the entrepreneur, he or she may help to craft a better strategy. They will look to the marketing and operations plans in the business plan to see that the tactics described fit the resources of the company and the market situation in order to evaluate whether the chosen strategy is good.

How Can I Tell If the Entrepreneur Can Execute?

Funders rely on past records of success and experience to know if the entrepreneur will be able to execute on the plans he or she has laid out. This should include experience with entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial activities in some form, experience leading others, and experience in the business sector in question. The management team must pull together individuals that cover these skill sets and assign roles to each that put their skills to use.

Is The Return Enough For Me?

Finally, funders examine whether they believe that the return represented by the plan’s financial projections is realistic and appropriate for the risk of the investment. Lenders generally require lower returns than investors, as they protect themselves from downside risk by requiring some type of collateral. Investors require higher returns because of their greater risk of losing the entire investment. Be sure that the return can be deduced from the financial projections without a great amount of legwork. For investors, however, you may choose to not set how many shares you intend to give away for their cash, but rather leave this open to negotiation.

Rule #1: Cash is ALWAYS King! When a business owner tells me they don’t have any intention of bartering because they can’t run their business without money, I know right away that I’m talking with someone who clearly doesn’t understand the leveraging power of barter is or what it could do for them with just a “little bit” of information and practical knowledge. Without going into great detail, always follow this rule… anytime you are receiving cash INTO your business, you should NEVER consider changing that account into a barter deal…. NEVER! Cash is ALWAYS King!

Rule #2: ANYTIME you’re spending money for a product or service, ALWAYS consider ways you can barter for it before spending the money! ALWAYS! Why? Let’s say you’re a massage therapist and you have 6 slots open each week and you charge $60 per massage…the only added cost for filling those time slots is the cost of a little massage oil and part of a cap full of laundry detergent to wash the sheets… about $3 at most? If you trade with a movie theater manager for movies, you’re going to pay out of pocket for those $60 worth of movies only $3! OR, you could go out and hustle more business for cash. (which is fine) But, we all know that empty tables can’t be made up with time and it’s a lot easier to get barter business sometimes (especially short term) than it is to get cash paying clients. So you see, doing business for cash is only sensible. But if you’re not using barter to “some degree” in your business, it’s like a restaurant selling hamburgers and fries and not offering a drink to go with it. If all they served was water, they’d be passing up a lot of profit potential.

Rule #3: NEVER, EVER, EVER inflate your prices when you barter. Charging a premium to barter is the fastest way to lose friends and negatively influence people. Abuse this and everyone you’ve ever done that to will be bad-mouthing your integrity in the barter circles for at least 8 years after you die. (give or take a few years Just don’t do it! If you charge $50 to fix appliances for cash… charge $50 to fix appliances when you barter.

RULE #4: Treat your barter customers the with the exact same importance that you do a cash paying customer! UNLESS you make the arrangements BEFORE the deal is consummated. If different arrangements are made before-hand, all parties will be getting exactly what they agreed to… which is exactly how you would treat a cash customer! If you pay heed to these 4 rules, barter will end up being a great experience for you. When you want more information about bartering feel free to visit our blog. Barter is a tremendous way to increase business in your slow times as well as bring in new customers to your business.