It’s obvious, your satisfied customers are your best sales people, and they will outsell you by 100 times. You can say how good you are, until you are blue in the face, but a 2 minute conversation between a satisfied customer and a prospect will close the deal quickly.

Testimonials are the only proof you’ve got.

When you say how good you are, you’re blowing your own trumpet, you’re bragging, but when someone else says the same thing, it’s proof, it has clout.

So if this is true, why do I see quotations, proposals and sales material being distributed without any proof?

If the credibility is so much higher, when someone else says how good you are, why are quotations, proposals and sales material not laden with testimonials?

How do you market and quote?

Is your sales material and proposals laden with testimonials, like a fruit tree, with branches dragging on the ground from the weight of the fruit?

If not, then why not?

A simple strategy of collecting a testimonial from every customer, and displaying them in all your sales material, is guaranteed to immediately increase your conversions. It will magnify your credibility and will be the most read part of your sales material.

But don’t get the wrong kind of testimonial.

"I would recommend XYZ Computers as they provide outstanding service. I have used them for 5 years." from Joe Bloggs (ABC Trading)

That testimonial may make you feel good, but its too general. A great testimonial should be written in a way that is focused and specific.

"I was wasting up to 10 hours a week trying to overcome computer glitches. Within 24 hours of calling XYZ Computers they had not only solved my problem but provided a solution that would prevent this from ever happening again. I paid less than $100 to solve a problem that was costing me $600 a week in down time and causing a lot of stress. If you have any doubt about using XYZ computers, just give me a call." from Ian McConnell (Profitfitness.com) tel – 7777 7777 7777

Now that’s a specific testimonial. Note the option for prospects to call. You need to convince your customers to insert their phone numbers, as it is free advertising for them.

Explain to them that less than 5% of prospects will call. It will make the testimonial 10 times more powerful. However if a prospect does call, make sure you reward the customer for this, it’s well worth it.

But how do you get testimonials like that?

Well first you need to EARN them and then you need to ASK for them. It’s ok to prompt the customer to get a more specific outcome, but be truthful and don’t exaggerate.

A feedback questionnaire, that is well thought out, could not only be used to improve your service, but also parts of it could be extracted and put together to make up the testimonial, with the customers permission of course.

Testimonials are a great tool for closing sales. They remove any doubt, reduce the risk, confirm the value and smooth the way to a sale. Great testimonials will sell much more product or services than you ever could! So if you don’t have any testimonials, you need to correct this now!

List your 10 best clients, call them, offer to buy them lunch and get those testimonials. And if it feels awkward to ask them, then your relationship is weak to the point that you could lose them to your competitors at any time.

It’s a customer! They are enquiring about that widget they bought from you yesterday.

Will it do x and y?

So you explain that it will do x and y. And because you are focused on providing the ultimate customer service, you talk them through the steps on the phone. After all you need to go the extra mile, don’t you?

You hang up and think "Another satisfied customer, but I wished they had read the owners manual before calling me!" You glance at your watch, then look at your diary and realize you are an hour behind schedule. Then there is a knock on the door…

Sound like your typical day?

Full of unscheduled interruptions, and at the end of the day wondering where all the time has gone?

You only managed to complete 10% of the stuff on your to-do list today?

So do you take yesterday’s unfinished business and add it to today’s business?

Or just cross it off in your diary and try and catch up next week?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when this happens! The important stuff never gets done because you are constantly trying to deal with all the little stuff. We all know it’s important to provide the best customer service, but taking on these interruptions in the belief that it will result in more referrals in the future, is a recipe for disaster.

Business is a numbers game. If your bottom line is not healthy, there will be a greater temptation to go and do something that has a healthier bottom line. You will lose the drive, the passion, it will become too hard.

If your daily activities are not constantly growing your new enquiries, improving your sales conversion rate, growing your transaction size and increasing the customer buying frequency, you will have an unhealthy bottom line, lose interest and give up!

As harsh as it sounds, it’s reality!

And it all comes down to the enforcement of your sensible time management. We all know there will always be interruptions and your time management should allow for those, within reason.

So how do you avoid the biggest killer of your business profits?

1) Plan your week before it starts. Block out your focused hours for marketing, research, administration, business planning, etc. But also allow limited time, to deal with interruptions and urgent matters, although these should be kept to an absolute minimum. Your business must run like a well oiled machine with no unexpected breakdowns.

2) Tell everyone around you, (yes, even your customers) when you are available and when you are not available. Remember, scarcity is a powerful marketing tool. Make yourself scarce.

3) Keep a record of all the interruptions and make it your goal to completely eliminate them by improving owner manuals, having an online manual with a frequently asked question area, changing systems or forms. You will notice a common thread with your interruptions and eventually you will be able to reduce them to a bare minimum.

4) Always plan any meetings for the end of the day. Meetings have a horrible habit of taking longer than they should. By scheduling them for the end of the day they will become focused and to the point, as everyone is keen to go home.

5) Remove the "I’m always available" sign. In this world of mobile phones and technology, customers believe that business owners should always be available to take their call or answer their email. If you decide to take every call or answer every email the moment it arrives, your business will suffer. Use voicemail and answer emails in a focused hour once per day.

Remember scarcity? You are not available immediately because you are busy. You are busy because you provide a quality product or service and are building a better business, which will benefit the customers and you. Scarcity works!

A small business vision can be compared to planning a holiday! People usually decide where they want to holiday based on the offerings of the destination.

If it’s a relaxing holiday they are after, they may go to Fiji. But if it’s for shopping, then Dubai may be their choice. If it’s to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge then they will go to Sydney, Australia.

Holiday destinations are determined by desires, with a few restrictions like budget and time available.

The same should apply to your small business. In 5 years time what do you want your small business to look and feel like?

Do you want a large street frontage or small office at home?

Do you want to be actively involved or have a manager controlling your employees?

How many employees do you want?

Do you want a business with excellent cash flow or a business that is worth a large sum of money when sold?

Answers to these questions and much more will help to provide a clear vision of your small business in 5 years time. And often this will completely shape your growth.

The majority of small business owners start a small business based on their trade or what they know. They never usually give much thought to their small business vision.

While it’s comforting running a small business using the skills you have, sometimes this can be a recipe for disaster.

Business is a game – it should be simple and fun. But Business Owners tend to complicate things and the business ends up controlling them.

Owning a small business should mean a better lifestyle – flexible and shorter working hours and more money.

But this is hardly ever the case; it’s more like working 60+ hours a week for about $4 an hour. Why is this so?

Because small business owners don’t have that vision. They don’t know where they are heading, they have nothing to aim for.

They have no idea what the finished product will look like, so the business eventually takes control. Decisions are based on what happened that day, instead of the business vision you are working towards.

Take the time now and think of your small business vision. What will your small business look like in 5 years?

Why will your customers continue to buy from you?

How will you beat your competitors?

What will make your small business attractive to any buyers?

What are all the potential risks?

Think carefully about these questions and then write your vision down. This will immediately tell you, the universe and anybody else, exactly what you are creating. It gives you a defined target to aim for and achieve.

You know exactly what to do and what not to do.

You have collected a file full of great example ads and created a great ad for your business.

You run it in the local newspaper every week for a month… But the phone does not ring, the customers don’t come rushing in the door…

WHY?

You may have all the knowledge about copywriting, but there will always be times when your ad or sales letter just does not get that phone ringing or the customers rushing through the door.

And it can get frustrating especially when you have spent hours creating the ad.

But remember this: Persistence is the secret to this game!

When you test and measure your advertising, you can afford to fail many times more than you succeed.

As an example, let’s say you invested $400 in an ad, and the phone doesn’t ring, and the customers don’t coming rushing through the door.

You write another 4 ads and they all crash and burn as well.

You don’t get ANY results from them. Not one enquiry.

You’ve now spent $2,000 and don’t have any enquiries?

However on your 6th ad, you hit a winner and the phone runs hot and you struggle to deal with all the customers coming in.

So, you ‘failed’ 5 times out of 6.

Was that a successful advertising campaign?

‘YES’ without a doubt!

Why? Because all along you would have been testing and measuring the return on investment of your ads.

You would have been making adjustments along the way until that winner came along.

But once you find that winner, how many times would you continue to run that winning ad or sending out that winning sales letter?

As often as you could, until it stops working.

There are ads that run in newspapers and magazines, on TV and online, they run week after week after week, for years and years.

There are sales letters that are mailed to millions of people month after month, year after year.

Think about it. If every time you spend $400 on an ad, it produced $800 worth of profit. Would it not make sense to run that ad as many times as possible, until the return on investment dropped off?

That’s what a winning ad or sales letter gives you the ability to do.

Yet many business owners stop after one failure, and never see the real rewards of effective advertising. They give up and say advertising doesn’t work!

Remember we said ‘Persistence is the secret to this game.’

Well, it is truly worth persisting because the rewards, when you find that winning ad or sales letter, are huge.

Success in advertising is as much about ‘mindset’ as it is about skill.

The right mindset to persist until you find that winner that you can use over and over again.

And never make the mistake of changing the ad because you believe people are bored of seeing your ad or sales letter.

You will get bored with it long before they do.

Let the numbers do the talking.

When that return on investment drops to an unacceptable level, that is when you make the changes and only then.

The secret is Persistence.

Ian McConnell is the author of Instant Small Business Profits – compulsory reading for any small business owner. This step by step guide contains valuable information on… "How To Dominate Sales In Your Marketplace, Create a Flood of Customers Chasing You For Your Product or Services And Turn Your Business Into a Powerful Profit Magnet!" For more information click here => http://www.small-business-secrets.com/main.html