Businesses Getting Results TM

1. Marketing - the Bigger Picture
   Gives you an overview of marketing as a whole. You will discover what it is, how it works, and why marketing is critical to success. You'll discover that marketing opportunities abound in every area of your business.

2. 4 Ways to Grow Your Business: #1 Winning New Customers
   Educates you about the 4 ways to grow your business - in particular the first method, winning new customers. This topic is an excellent way to preview Businesses Getting Results topics related to winning new customers.

3. 4 Ways to Grow Your Business: #2 Getting Your Customers to Come Back More Often
   Educates you about the 4 ways to grow your business - in particular the second method, winning repeat business. This topic is an excellent way to preview Businesses Getting Results topics related to winning repeat business more often.

4. 4 Ways to Grow Your Business: #3 Increase Your Average Sale
   Educates you about the 4 ways to grow your businesses - in particular the third method, increasing the 'average transaction value.' This topic is an excellent way to preview Businesses Getting Results topics related to increasing average spending.

5. 4 Ways to Grow Your Business: #4 Improve the ‘Processes’ in Your Business
   Educates you about the 4 ways to grow your businesses - in particular the fourth method, improving the effectiveness and processes within your business to ensure achievement of the first 3 ways to grow your business.

6. Failing to Plan = Planning to Fail
   Educates you about the benefits of completing a business plan, or at the very least, detailed 'action plans'. When you begin to plan your business, the financial and personal rewards will be far greater.

7. The Most Common Reasons for Small Business Failure and What to Watch Out For
   Educates you about the real reasons for many business failures. You'll discover some interesting statistics to bear in mind and what to be aware of to avoid failure so you can take proactive steps to address these issues before they occur.

8. The ‘S.W.O.T Snapshot’: Zooming in on Your Business
   Educates you about how to 'zoom' in on issues within your business by completing an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. When you do so regularly, you will be better prepared and able to address issues quickly.

9. What’s Your Business’ Mission in Life?
   Coming soon.

10. Friend or Foe? A Competitive Analysis
    Educates you about a new way of looking at your competitors and the opportunity that could provide your businesses. When you begin to view competitors as another possible resource, profitable opportunities and working relationships could flourish.

11. A Numbers Game? Your Sales & Forecasts
    Shows how to map out sales and forecasts realistically and more easily. This 'numbers game,' means you will more accurately predict sales, better control your marketing activities, and be far more likely to achieve your sales goals on target.

12. Understanding the Profit a 'Backend' Can Bring Your Business
    Educates you about the importance of having a back end within your business. When you begin to further develop your back end or implement this concept profits could increase and the longevity of the business is more assured.

    Customer Retention … Getting Customers to Come Back Again and Again and Increase the Number of Times They Deal with You Each Year

    The BGRs found in this area cover strategies and ideas designed to keep customers coming back again. These address how to increase the number of times customers deal with your business per year - one of the 4 key ways to grow a business.

13. Creating Communication Schedules to Keep Your Customers ‘On the Boil’
    Educates you about the significant effects of staying in touch with customers. Specifically, you will discover how to implement 'Communication Schedules' to ensure frequent contact. The more frequent the contact, the higher the sales.

14. Your Most Valuable Asset - Your Customer Database
    You will gain an understanding of an invaluable asset - your customer database. When you begin to develop and utilize your customer databases better, you will be tapping into a veritable gold mine of people ready to buy over and over again.

15. Creating a ‘Team Commitment’
    Educates you about how to create a 'team commitment' so customers will feel more confident as to what to expect and therefore more likely to buy. The process of creating a team commitment also improves teamwork within your business.

16. Learn Your A, B, C’s and Sell Your D’s!
    Educates you about how to classify customers to increase profits and simplify working arrangements to improve quality of life. Improvements and activities become more focused on customers who are worthwhile, easy to deal with, and generate profits.

17. A Sleeping Giant - Reactivating Old Customers and Clients
    Educates you about how crucial past customers are to your profitability and why it is imperative to reactivate them. If you begin to 'awaken the giant' - that is, reactivate old customers - your businesses will grow.

18. 'Post Purchase Conflict' and How to Avoid It
    Educates you about 'post-purchase conflict' and how to avoid it for your business. When you begin to address this issue in advance, you'll retain a higher number of happy clients and so enjoy greater ongoing sales.

19. Client Advisory Boards
    Educates you about the power of getting your customers talking through Client Advisory Boards. By doing so you will gain a better understanding of your clients' needs, ideas, and wants and be more appealing to both customers and prospects.

20. Understand Tebtors and Discover the One Key Thing You Can Do
    Educates you about how to view debtors as an opportunity. This information delves into the meaning of debt, what it is, and how best to measure and control debtors. If you begin to manage debtors better, your cash flow could improve.

21. 3 Surefire Ways to Collect What You're Owed
    Educates you about some clever techniques to collect what you are owed. When you begin to collect monies owed more efficiently, cash flow management will become easier, perhaps freeing up resources to grow your business.

22. How to Make Sure You Don't Have a Debtor Problem in the First Place!
    Educates you about how to avoid debtor problems through very simple, easy-to-use, commonsense techniques. When you do that by implementing alternative payment methods and other ideas outlined here, your cash flow should improve.

    Increasing Your Average Sale

    Another one of the 4 keys way to grow a business is to increase the average sale. Each of the BGR’s found here address that issue in different and important ways.

23. Price - Is it Really an Issue?
    Here you gain an insight into the true significance of price. You'll discover why understanding that price may NOT be the main motivator for most customers is critical to your success and in some cases, downfall.

24. From Cardboard to Language - the 3 Levels of Packaging for Your Business
    Educates you about just how important packaging can be for your businesses. In particular the physical packaging of products (see the 35 point checklist) and services, bundling of products and services and packaging the business as a whole.

25. Your Pricing Strategy - The Power of Positioning
    Educates you about why it's important to decide where you want to be in the market. Pricing policy is the key determinant of that positioning. You'll discover what it involves for your business, and what it could mean to the future of your business.

26. Packaging that Sells More and Adds Value
    Educates you about why packaging is so important. You will discover reasons why and how to package products and services to increase the average transaction value and offers your customers another point of differentiation.

Improving the Effectiveness Within the Business

The way we do business impacts on new sales, repeat business, keeping team members happy, profits and more. The difference here is that it's often the "little things" that have huge impact.

27. "Perceived Indifference": Are you suffering from it?
    You discover what "Perceived Indifference" is and find out whether it is affecting your sales. If you begin to understand "Perceived Indifference" you will become more focused on customer service and sales should increase.

28. "Working on Your Business Rather Than in It": What’s That All About?
    Educates you about the effects working "on" your business can have for your future. When you begin to spend more time working "on" your business rather than 'in' it, your businesses will develop more quickly and should increase in value.

    Client Acquisition:
    Getting New Customers to Deal with the Business

    Here you'll find BGRs covering "Advertising and Letter Writing", "Other Promotions", "The Phone" and "Sales Systems". Each of which are designed to address 1 of the key ways to grow a business - win more customers!
    Advertising & Letter Writing

29. Advertorials and Direct Response ads vs. Traditional Advertising
    Give an insight into which style of advertising will work better for your businesses and why. You will be given hints and tips on how to make the most appropriate type of advertising work.

30. How to Write a Headline that Really Grabs Your Reader
    Gives an insight into the power of headlines. You will find out why and how to create headlines that really work. When you begin to use headlines that truly appeal to your potential customers marketing results should increase.

31. What’s Your Client’s Lifetime Value to Your Business?
    Explains how to calculate and use a customer's or client's 'lifetime value' for marketing and management purposes. You will discover reasons why this idea is critical to success and how to implement it.

32. 'Offers': a Powerful Tool to Win New Business
    This gives you an insight into offers, what they are, why they're critical to the success of your marketing, and 7 different types of offers to generate a response-fast.

33. 3 Surefire Ways of Getting Your "Foot in the Front Door"!
    Explains how to calculate and use a customer's or client's 'lifetime value' for marketing and management purposes. You will discover reasons why this idea is critical to success and how to implement it.

34. Increase Your Average Sale by Making Offers Your Customers Can't Refuse!
    Gives you an insight into packaging products or services together as an offer, offering upgrades, or creating incentives or bulk discounts to increase the average sale.

35. Entice Your Customers to Buy from You Again with Offers and Bonuses
    This information helps you discover just how important offers can be to bring customers back again and again. Making sure customers return more often to purchase again is one of the key ways to grow a business so this is an important issue.

36. How to Create Great 'offers' for Your Business
    Gives you an insight into creating offers that overcome human inertia and motivate people to act NOW. You will learn about how to create offers that really will generate a response.

37. Guarantees - a Sales Opportunity
    Gives you insight into the power of guarantees to increase the response to marketing, and to increase sales. You will find out why guarantees are important, why being blatant about them is the key, and why the 'risk,' if any, is truly worth it.

38. Guarantees - a Double-Edged Sword
    Gives you an insight into the power of guarantees, not only as a sales and marketing tool but also as a critical management tool. You'll find out how guarantees can help them improve every aspect of your operations.

39. "What’s In It for Me?": the Language of Sales


Gives you an insight into how to use another 'language' to your advantage - one that reaches people and generates a positive response. Called "What's In It-For Me?" it could make all the difference to your marketing and sales processes.

40. Features vs. Benefits: the Ultimate Battle for Sales
    Educates you about how to promote 'benefits' rather than 'features'. You will discover reasons why the "FAB" rule is critical to sales success as customers become more aware of the differences between you and competitors.

41. Tapping into the "Cycle of Life"
    Coming soon.

42. The "Curse of Assumption" - you must educate to motivate
    Gives insight into the magic that can happen when you educate customers and prospects. If educated you'll better understand the benefits offered, quality, value, experience, and other benefits become more important than price.

43. The Power of Testimonials
    Educates you about the power of gathering and using testimonials in marketing material. You'll find out how third-party endorsements are more powerful than standard marketing text and could increase the response to your marketing and sales.

44. A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words - Graphics and Layout
    Educates you about utilizing photography, graphics, and layout in your marketing. Find out how to do so to improve results all with the view to growing your businesses.

45. Understand the True Sale: Aim for an Advance
    Offers insight into how selling is not just face-to-face selling or meeting with a salesperson. You will find out how winning a response is the first "true sale". And you'll review the "sales process", where "mini-sales" occur right up to purchase.

46. Remember to Keep the "Ball in your Court"
    Gives you an understanding of the importance of retaining control within the marketing process. You'll find out how to close direct mail pieces in a way that leaves you in control, serves potential customers more effectively and increases results.

47. Phone-Mail-Phone: A Key to Better Results
    Gives you an insight into how to get better results from the dollars you invest in direct mail to customers and potential customers. You will review one of the most powerful techniques, known as a 'phone-mail-phone' strategy.

48. Advertising in Your Phone Directory - 6 Steps to Make Your Phone Ring!
    You will discover 6 specific tools to make phone directory advertising really work. If that is important for you, this information could make a huge difference in the amount of inquiries, and consequently sales, receive.

49. Advertising in Your Phone Directory - 6 More Steps to Make your Phone Ring!
    Here you will discover 6 more specific tools to help you increase the response from your phone directory advertising. If phone directory advertising is important for you this is an important topic.

50. Advertising and Marketing: Is it Really Worth it? What You Can Measure You Can Manage
    Gives an insight into how important tracking the results of marketing is to future marketing and, ultimately, profitability. You will discover some easy ways to measure and monitor results to make better use of your marketing dollar next time.

51. Testing - Making Your Marketing Dollar go Further for You
    Gives you an insight into why testing is important and the concept of 'what you can measure you can manage.' You'll find out how to use testing to your advantage easily and you'll then be able to fine-tune those techniques and improve results.

52. "If it Ain’t Broke, don’t Fix It!"
    Gives an insight into why it's important to keep using a strategy or a marketing piece that's working, even if you're tired of it. This ensures your marketing efforts reap the greatest rewards possible over time.

53. A New Style of Working Relationship that Could Double your Client Base - and Your Sales - Overnight
    Here you will discover one of THE most leveraged ways to grow your businesses. You’ll learn how to establish cooperative marketing, host beneficiary or 'host-style' relationships within your communities as a constant source of new leads.

    Other Promotions

54. Develop a Promotions Schedule to Propel your Sales
    Ever notice how your sales can be up and down? Business fluctuates dramatically at times, and in many cases without apparent 'seasonal' justification. The question is-why? Learn how to improve sales levels throughout the year here.

55. CC’s: The Key to Marketing is Being Constant and Consistent
    Many have been in the situation where one minute you're busy and the next - seemingly overnight-nothing. Sales have 'suddenly' slowed. Find out why and how and what to do to create an evenly distributed, upwards sales curve.

56. Improving Mailbox Drops & Catalogues
    Direct mail via mailbox drops involves mail outs of letters, product lists, samples, or catalogues. These can be a great source of business. You’ll discover how to ensure your mailbox drops or catalogues are a success, rather than an expense.

57. Tips to Television & Radio Advertising
    Educates you about mediums many small- to medium-sized businesses don't utilize - TV and radio - or how to improve it. You will discover how you might best access these mediums and how to make sure it's a successful venture.

58. How to Increase Profits by Having other Businesses Working for You
    Shows how to approach vendors and suppliers to establish better deals and have vendors work for you. You'll discover vendors can be sources for 'market research' too. All of which could mean increased sales, leaner costs, and better profitability.

59. Harnessing the Power of "Word of Mouth"
    Educates you about how to systematically capture 'word of mouth'. If you begin to tap into 'word of mouth' or referrals in a more structured way, it could impact the size and profitability of your client base significantly.

60. 8 Great Ideas to Make Sure Your Business Is the Kind of Business That Deserves (Wins and Keeps on Winning) Referrals
    Educates you about how to make your businesses the kind of business people can and do happily refer. You'll discover how to implement this within each facet of your business to ensure an ongoing flow of new leads from your own client base.

61. 7 Ways to Gather Referrals for Your Business
    Educates you about how to create a referral system. If you begin to implement these ideas, you will be more likely to create a referral system that genuinely works, providing an ongoing, steady flow of customers in an inexpensive way.

    Unique Core Differentiators

62. Perception is the Reality. People Buy Differences They Perceive and "Unique Core Differentiators"
    Educates you about 'Unique Core Differentiators' - why people choose one business over another, or one product or service over another. You will discover how important it is to differentiate your business from your competitors.

63. 3 Types of Unique Core Differentiators
    If you begin to articulate what makes your business unique, potential customers will understand why they should buy from you rather than your competitors - more easily. This will increase sales and grow the business in the marketplace.

64. Tips on Creating a Great Unique Core Differentiator for Your Business
    Explains why people truly buy from a business and how to create the differentiation to motivate customers. You will discover if you begin to articulate clearly defined 'UCD's,' you will stand out from the crowd and people will buy more easily.

    Sales Systems

65. Taking the Mystery Out of Selling … Create a System That Sells for You
    Educates you about how to make selling a far easier process. In fact, how to systemize it to the point whereby you not only achieve that goal but also increase sales in many cases-dramatically.

66. Have Your Customers Take the ‘6 Questions’ Test
    This test helps your customers better understand the importance of choosing your business over a competitor, so sales will convert more easily, and you'll enjoy an improved return on your marketing investment.

67. Your Business Profile - an Important Tool
    You will learn the key steps required to create a business profile for your business and how to use it in your sales processes, to induct team members, deal with banks, educate new suppliers about the nature of your business, and more.

68. Cross Selling - Checklists and Other Tools
    When you begin to implement cross-selling, you will be focusing on growing your businesses not only by acquiring new customers and getting them to come back again and again, but also by increasing your average transaction value.

69. Conversion Rates - Why Tracking is Vital and How to Improve Yours
    Educates you about how to track your sales conversion rates and improve them. If you begin to track conversion rates, your marketing programs could improve, as well as your sales results and consequent financial position.

70. Terrific Tools to Capture Passing Trade
    Educates you about how to capture more passing trade through a key element of a business' packaging-their signage and other techniques. Shows how to implement these ideas to help differentiate yourself from your competitors.

71. The Might of Merchandising
    You will discover how merchandising covers the design of the overall environment, layout, traffic flow, visual controls, signage, packaging, through to product knowledge and, in some cases, sales techniques - and how to improve it.

    The Phone

72. Phone Answering and Other Powerful Phone Tips
    You will discover why answering the phone to a certain standard is so critical and how to implement these phone standards so you project a more professional image to current and potential customers and start to improve sales.

73. 3 More Phone Standards That Really will Increase Sales
    Educates you about 3 more phone standards, specifically to increase sales. If you begin to use these standards, sales should increase, the business will project a more professional image, and offer a more consistent service standard.

74. Converting Calls to Sales or Meetings: Crunch Time!
    When you begin to use these standards, you'll have techniques designed to help solve your needs easily and efficiently and in the process increase sales via the phone and so be more likely to convert an inquiry to a sale or a meeting.

75. Phone Scripts That Work
    Shows you specific examples of phone scripts that work to increase sales. When you begin to use adaptations of these scripts that suit your individual businesses, sales should increase and you will begin to see higher conversion rates.