I feel jealous.

Why? Because I spoke to a lady today who knows she is to be made redundant after many years in the public sector and is planning to start her own business when that happens in a few months.

But why should I feel jealous about that?

Most of us in business work on the 'just in time' model.

Sometimes we come up with new ideas, products or directions and they need to be actioned NOW. Maybe because financially we need to, or perhaps it's a small window of opportunity that someone else will fill if we don't act right away.

That means we have little time to make really good preparations and build the confidence building collateral our prospects might look for to justify calling us. So we wing it!

Wouldn't it be nice, just sometimes, to have the luxury of time.

Thanks is always appreciated isn't it?

Those of you who know me well also know that I really get a kick out of helping others and, like most people, I feel good if someone thanks me for it too.

Working in business networking circles it's just part of life that you would sincerely thank someone for giving them a referral, great advice or some old fashioned help. I wouldn't even dream of doing anything else and most of the business people I know work in the same way.

It's a shame everyone doesn't think like that.

Here's three situations that have arisen over the last six months. I'm sure you won't have been guilty of these but it's easy to let them pass by without realising the effect on the other party.

> I changed my car towards the end of last year and it had previously been fitted with a bluetooth mobile phone device that tapped into the radio. When I changed my mobile phone in February I just couldn't get it link despite internet searches and re-reading the manual.

The next day I saw a van in the traffic queue next to me advertising the system fitted to my car, so I jotted down the phone number. I called them and spoke to a guy out on a job. He was obviously busy but within just a minute or two was able to tell me how to fix it. I thanked him, apologised for disturbing him and told him how appreciative I was.

I was delighted when the fix worked and I'm connected up now. So I found them on the web and sent them a message telling them how helpful their man had been and how grateful I was. In return I offered to find a way of promoting his business within my networking contacts with no charge simply to repay their kindness.

And the result? Nothing, zilch, zero. Not even a 'Sorry we're out' message. My positive feelings towards that business have all but drained away now.

> I have an offline spam filtering system that sends me a message each morning with a list of, and a link to, all of the trapped emails from the previous day. Most of it is of course rubbish but one came through early in the week that looked like it was genuine but was markered as having a virus.

Now this is important to know if you are the sender as you don't want to be either sending out a mail with a virus in it or having most of your mails binned before it reaches the recipient. So I took the trouble to investigate the mail without jeopardising my own security and sent all the details to the sender (a genuine company with a good product to sell). There were some other issues with the email that would potentially stop it working for them and offered some sound advice to overcome them.

And the result? Nothing, zilch, zero. Not even a 'Sorry we're out' message.

The third example I'm not going to go into detail as it involves me helping a member of my extended family who I helped with a business opportunity. Don't really see or speak that often, but I was happy to help and use my contacts to make things happen.

And the result? Nothing, zilch, zero. Not even a 'Thanks for helping' message.

It doesn't take much to maintain contact and you never know what it might lead to.

How did you choose your business name?

Choosing a business name always seems an exciting time and loads of ideas run around your head before you finally settle on 'The One'. But there's a few things that you should consider before those ideas run wild.

1. If the business is not going to be a global player, and potentially a household name, then including something that indicates something about what you do can help potential customers decide if they should be calling you or not.

Clever is ok, but if it leaves them mystified, it hasn't really helped the cause. Would Aviva, Corus or Square Giraffe say anything about your business?

If your business is really local I would even consider making it blatantly obvious what you do - Suffolk Management Training or Norfolk Plumbing Repairs.

2. Next on the list is to find out if your chosen name already exists. A search on Companies House and Trade Mark listings will show up whether your new business 'McDonalds Take Away' might get you into deep water with their legal department or simply get you confused with others of a similar name.

3. Finally you need to consider the Internet.

You really do need to have a domain name that matches your business name. Without that people will struggle to find you. If you have got this far and the domain name isn't available then I would go back to step one and start again.

If you are a UK based business then you absolutely need to have the .co.uk version of your business name but I would also buy the .com .net .tv .info and .biz versions too. Just think of the consequences of a competitor setting up in the same business, taking one of those domain suffixes, marketing it like mad and taking half your business. Just allow enough in your budget to buy all of them to be sure.

If we take one of the business name examples above I would also buy the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions - suffolkmanagementtraining as well as suffolk-management-training. The second version is easier for people to see, understand and remember when it's on your physical advertising.

Hyphens can help too if the words could be mis-read when put together. There are some famous 'howlers' in this department which must have horrified their owners once they realised:-

therapistfinder - 'therapist finder' or could be 'the rapist finder'
expertsexchange - 'experts exchange' or 'expert sex change'
whorepresents - 'who represents' or 'whore presents'
penisland - which is actually 'pen island' apparently

Advertising the hyphenated version of each of those domain names would have saved a great deal of embarrassment!

If you are choosing your business name, then choose it wisely.

Needs some help getting your business up and running? Just call me. Sales & Marketing Strategy with AlloyCRM

A sales meeting got me thinking

A meeting today with a small group of new sales guys for the cross platform (Mac/Apple & PC) contact management software I'm overseeing got me thinking.

I went through with them the product and it's competitors looking at a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) for each. Looked at the potential triggers for purchase and potential problems it would solve, followed up by some marketing activity ideas to get them started.

But even after all that the question was - 'Where do I start? What businesses should I target?'

Yes it's too easy to get carried away and perceive that the whole world is a potential customer and you just end up spinning around not knowing who to talk to first. Been there, done that.

When you are starting out selling something new there is always a little trepidation - Will it sell? Can I sell it?

Making a few quick wins (sales) will boost confidence and give a chance to learn what makes the basis of a good sales presentation for this product.

So looking for the quick wins is probably the first step. You've probably done an exercise to identify your ideal customers and maybe broken them down by size/sector or similar. Within that is there an identifiable group who are in a position to make a quick decision and get the purchase under way?

We identified for our Contact Management product that we could be selling to sole traders who have a decent client/prospect base such as business coaches or trainers - these people want to maximise the return from their clients through repeat sales - and businesses with a sales team where the sales manager needs visibility of the sales process and manage his team effectively.

The sales manager sale will probably be larger but will take time as the proposal will have to go to the board of directors and there is a possibility that other competitive products will be evaluated before the sale is completed.

The sole trader sale on the other hand is a one-person decision process and they will arrive at that decision fairly quickly. It may not make the same profit as the larger deal but it gets one under the belt and builds that all important confidence and that was my advice to the guys today - get out there and network with those sole traders and learn!

Don't hide your success - shout about it!

We had a stroll around the beautiful grounds of Blickling Hall in Norfolk today. A really picturesque setting with a National Trust managed stately hall as it's setting - well worth a visit.

Next to the car park is a shop called Samphire that sells excellent local food including their renowned local sausages.

You can't miss that their sausages are good (and I can tell you that they are good!) because everywhere you look it says that Gary Rhodes says they are the best he's ever tasted! In fact it's quite difficult to walk out of the shop without buying some the message is so strong.

We British are pretty poor at being proud of what we do well. Make sure that, if someone tells you how good you are, you let everyone know - on your website, in your advertising, on your van, in a press release to the media.

Don't hide your success - shout about it!

What are your buyers buying?

I spent some time last week with a small start up that manufactures very small run art decor occasional furniture.

They wanted me to help them setup and layout their web site based on Actinic, the popular off the shelf web shop application.

The key concept I had to get across was that their customers are not buying 'a nest of tables'.

They are buying something that makes them feel good. An attractive place to put down their wine glass at the end of a long day and relax - a table that you pull out when you have friends round and they are so taken with it they want to know where you found it.

It's the good feelings you have inside that your buyers want when they are looking for this sort of purchase.

Is that the sort of product you sell? Think about how they might feel when they have bought it and make that the centre of your sales message and it's supporting images.

Get Ready for a Great 2010

Christmas is just about over and the New Year is just around the corner.

Going by the activity in the last quarter, 2010 looks set to be much better for buisness. Most seem to be waking up to the fact that sitting on your hands and doing nothing, hoping to sit it out and that the storm will just pass by isn't an option.

Doing the Second World War, Cadbury's chocolate continued to advertise heavily despite a severe shortage of their products and no chance of increasing revenue. But, once hostilities ceased and production restarted fully, the Cadbury's name was the one on peoples mind. It built their business to be the strong brand it is today.

Don't sit on the fence and wait for the world to pass you by. Get out there and let everyone know who you are and what you do - the business world hasn't stopped.

If you need help working out the best way to get your products and services in front of the right people - on the internet or in the real world - call me at Alloy CRM for a chat and see if I can help.

What do your customers really buy?

Do you really understand why your customers might buy your product or service?

Is it because of the 'features' you offer?

Let's say you wanted to buy a new laptop computer.

You might go out and look for one with 3gb of ram, a 2.5 hour battery life and a 250gb hard drive.

But in reality you're not looking for those features because they excite you. You look for them because:

> 3gb Ram means your laptop will run quickly, smoothly and allow you to have several programs running at once without too much adverse effect.

> A 2.5 hour battery life means you can sit on the train on the way to a meeting and work for pretty much all of the journey being more productive and not wasting time.

> A 250gb hard drive means you can store all of your holiday picture and videos without running out of space.

These are the 'Benefits'

Before you went into the PC shop you did the analysis of what you wanted out of your laptop (the benefits) and the features required to achieve them.

Understanding the difference between features and benefits is critical to successful marketing and sales.

Sometimes (often, maybe) the benefits are not so clear cut as the laptop example. Take the motor industry for example.

A car, whatever type or size it is, will get you from A to B in the dry and warm. Even the performance of the car is pretty irrelevant as the speed limit is 70 mph, and it's often impossible to use the acceleration or cornering capabilities of high performance cars in this country.

So why does one person buy a small car and another buy a large luxury sports model?

It comes down to life style, status or aspirations. If that's the case then your advertising needs to reflect that.

Have you ever seen an advert for a Bentley or an Aston Martin with it parked in an Asda car park? No, but you might see an ad' for a small family car with happy parents putting their smiling children into the back seat and ample shopping in the boot outside a smart supermarket.

The Bentley is more likely to be sitting outside the Savoy Hotel or some other very swanky part of London's West End.

Right. If we understand the difference between the Features that people buy as against the Benefits that people are really looking for then we need to work that out for our business and products or services.

I came across a very useful device to help with this process in a book called The Jelly Effect by Andy Bounds.

He suggests going through a routine he describes as 'So What?'

Start by writing down a feature and then asking yourself 'So What'. Answer that and continue asking 'So What' until you really can't answer any more.

Now you are potentially at the root benefit that your customers are looking for and in a position to find ways of communicating that in your advertising and marketing.

If you want more help to find your core benefits read The Jelly Effect or call me for some personal advice.

Alloy CRM - Sales and Marketing Strategy

The 2 Appointment Sale Problem

As part of your selling do you often have 2 parts to the process?

Maybe 2 meetings or phone calls before the sale is completed?

This is quite common and, for sales with considerable commitment, tends to end up with a more solid sale with less buyer remorse and fewer cancellations.

However, handling a 2 appointment sale like this needs some thought.

During the first appointment or call the process is pretty standard:

Questioning and listening to understand the problems and pain
Understand the implications of the problem
Put forward the appropriate benefits of your solution

At this point, in a one appointment sale, you would go for the close. The buyer should, at this point, fully understand how your solution will make the difference and be really enthusiastic about it to the point of wanting to go for it there and then.

But now we're going to have to walk away.

A couple of days later we're back with the buyer to complete the sale and here's where many sales people go wrong.

You have lived and breathed this sale and how you're going to pitch the final close today since you left last time and you are absolutely bouncing with enthusiasm.

Unfortunately your buyer isn't in the same frame of mind. Although really enthusiastic at the end of the last meeting, that has dissipated very quickly since then. A million and one other things had happened in his business and personal life that have pushed the importance of your solution way down the scale.

The answer is to go back at do exactly what you did at the first appointment. 'Remind' the buyer of the problems he's facing and 'confirm' that's the case. Review the benefits and how they will overcome his issues.

Done carefully, within a relatively short time, the buyer will be back up full of enthusiasm as he was last time and gladly signing the order form. The bonus is the stronger sale that you have now.

If you then have a delivery point, why don't you do the same again? Go through the same process to ensure your customer feels great about his purchase and looks forward to the pleasure it will give him.

If you need help with your sales on or off line then contact Roy Gough at Alloy CRM.

Websites with a commercial focus

There is more to a website than making it look pretty.

The whole purpose of a commercial website is to increase sales, revenue and therefore profit.

Without having that as your foundation what is the point of spending a great deal of money to achieve nothing?

I sat with a small local organisation recently. They are not, and don't need to be, commercially focused. Or at least they didn't think they were.

Just because they're not my traditional target market didn't mean that I would skip my interrogation of their financial position and reasoning behind the decision to have a good web presence.

Digging around I discovered that they are a charity and require money to maintain their building. They have spare capacity for hire and filling their venue would go a long way to alleviating their financial needs.

So yes, the right web presence could have the desired effect and, if done properly, could attract hirers who are prepared to pay more than they are currently charging.

But there's more...

Using my commercially creative side I have suggested a way in which the website could generate its own recurring revenue without a great deal of effort. I won't go into details here as it's still in its embryonic stage at the moment. But suffice to say that the business model is sound and could transform their facility for everyone in their community.

You don't have to be in a commercial environment to use commercial logic. But doing so can resolve a surprising number of non commercial issues and problems.

Need help with your website profits ? Alloy CRM

Getting sales when times are tough

If times are tough where do you look for extra business. Is there a secret, untapped, vein of potential revenue that you can try?

Maybe there is a vast community of potential customers that you've never even come across before that are just crying out for your solution?

Sad news folks - the reality is that it's unlikely. So best you look elsewhere.

It's widely accepted that most businesses fail miserably when it comes to looking after, and selling to, past satisfied customers. Why is that? These people are probably the most receptive to your offer of further products and services.

But, beware, if you haven't contacted them at all since you made your last sale, don't just blast them with a sales pitch. That will go down like a lead balloon.

So what can you do?

Try regularly keeping them informed about things that are related to your product but are helpful to them. It could be tips on how to use your service or product better, changes in legislation that affect them or research progress that could help them in the future when they are considering replacement. The objective is to be their helpful friend in your sector.

By all means add a small piece at the end of your connection to remind them about what you have to offer, but don't make it an all out sales pitch.

The easiest way to do this of course is by email. That way the process is much simpler and cost effective. If you haven't been keeping in touch in the past, don't expect a huge rush of orders from your first mailings. But if you seed links back to appropriate parts of your website for more information, or a phone number to call for help, you could end up with some leads you might have otherwise lost to your competition.

Managing an on-going email campaign such as this can be difficult without the right tools.

There are two providers I use regularly, aWeber - probably accepted as the industry standard, and SendFree - not quite free if you want the emails to look right, but still inexpensive.

If you would like to go down this route and need some help and guidance, please contact me through my site Alloy CRM site where I help businesses increase sales, revenue and profit.

http://alloycrm.aweber.com/
http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105448/

Green Shoots of Recovery?

I heard today that a major estate agent in Norwich believes they are seeing movement in the housing market.

They have been selling housing stock at the lower end of the price range, which must be good news. The downside is the price reduction those owners have had to make in order to sell. Apparently they had to drop from around £140k at the top of the boom to £100k now.

Realistically though the boom peak prices were just off this planet and needed a major correction anyway so the losses aren't as large as they appear.

In another whisper I heard today, the banks seem to have found their business loan application forms again and are actively handing out money. I guess (hope) they are being a bit more careful in their credit checking rather than the lax "does he breathe and can he sign his name' check they seem to be using on some lending up to last year.

If your with me and see the twinkle of light at the end of the tunnel, then make sure you hit the ground running when it all takes off by having your on and off line sales strategy already fired up. Need help with it? Contact me at Alloy CRM for help with increasing your revenue and profits.

Someone made me think about networking

As the Chapter Director of a BNI (Business Network International) group in Norwich, I was passed the contact details of someone who had shown interest in visiting and maybe joining our group. I sent out the appropriate invitation and received a reply that said they had spoken to most of our members at other networking events and they were not able to sell to them then, so there would be no point in joining. I sent them a polite (hopefully) reply explaining what networking is really about.

Yes there will always be an element of the hunter in us all at networking events, some events are more suited to it than others. Andy Bounds excellent book The Jelly Effect explains how to maximise this process well. He goes through the process of identifying your 'Big Fish' in the room and succeeding in securing a meeting later to discuss business opportunities.

However groups like BNI work on a different dimension. They are based on relationships. Understanding what your fellow members do, how they add value and their ideal target customer gives us the background knowledge we need to find them suitable prospective customers in our daily travels and maybe within our own client base.

To do this effectively we spend a great deal of time understanding each others business and gaining confidence and trust in their ability to fulfil. That's not a quick win. It takes time to build that sort of relationship, but once it's there is very sound and can be very lucrative.

So if you're just about to look at networking as a new form of marketing then make sure you understand how networking works before you blunder out there and think it's a waste of time.

Roy Gough of Alloy CRM helps businesses increase sales both on and off line.

How are you selling?

Sorry to keep harping back to this again but I just think it's so important - especially in the current climate.

I guess that in your business you will have, or do, one of these things:
1. Have a retail shop
2. Have a trade counter and display
3. Have a demonstration area or showroom
4. Have an exhibition stand for trade shows
5. Have a presentation you use either one to one or at events
6. Used a designer to create your ads and leaflets

If you are serious about growing and increasing profit through sales you will have spent a great deal of time and care making sure that these are right.

By that I mean you would take care to make sure that your products and services are presented in a way that fits the environment and client you are targeting.

If you were looking to buy a Bentley you would expect the showroom to have a certain ambiance and appear upmarket. Buying produce from a farmers market you expect it to look fresh and presented well but may feel cheated if it was all laid in cardboard boxes that seemed to come from a wholesaler rather than directly from the fields. Would you man your exhibition stand in jeans and tee shirt if you were hoping to sell to business leaders?

We are all influenced significantly not just by the product but also it's presentation. That presentation needs to reflect, and tap into, the likely reason for buying.

It is said that there are 3 reasons people buy:
Greed
Fear
Desire

I have yet to see ad ad for a Bentley parked outside a roadside layby cafe surrounded by white vans and lorries. It's more likely to be on a beautiful country road, outside a stately home or the Savoy hotel, building a desire to be part of that lifestyle.

Where am I going with this?

Fire up your web browser and look at your own website.

Does it have the right ambiance? Does it look how a buyer would expect it to look?

Help your customers understand what they will gain, save or avoid by using your product and you will have a better chance of getting the result you want from your website.

Maybe you need to look at your other advertising, not just your website, in the same way too?

If you need help with sales have a look at our Sales Accelerator
If you need help with your wesite take a look at our Website Profit Program

How can we beat the recession?

We know that the internet is taking an increasing role in purchasing decisions and that we need to maximise our exposure there.
But how do we do it with limited budget? You've probably spent your marketing and advertising budget every year so can't find more to fund internet marketing too.

Well lets have a look at what you are spending your budget on now and the results you get from it. You may well have invested in some or all of these - Yellow Pages, Trade journals, Newspapers, TV/Radio and Direct mail.

Now tell me, honestly, if you can quantify, EXACTLY, the return on your investment for each activity - down to individual adverts.

I suspect that your answer may well be a bit vague. Henry Ford, famously didn't say "Half my
advertising works, I just don't know which half" (someone whose name I can't recall said it).
If that sums up your advertising budget, now is the time to be more prudent and use a medium that allows you to value every penny you spend, test and measure the results on an hourly basis and tap into the internet sales that are increasing as we speak.

Pay Per Click advertising in the search engines, such as Google and MSN, along with Facebook is the smart way to use your marketing budget effectively and get return on your hard earned investment.

More information on cost effective PPC advertising here from Alloy CRM

New Year - New Revenue?

New Year - New Revenue? What can you do differently in 2009 that could significantly improve your revenue and profit?

Here's just a few ideas:

• Look back through your customer list and see who hasn't bought from you in the last 12 months. Contact them, find out why and rebuild the relationship if they are still potential customers.
  
• Check back to see who you pitched for business but lost out. Try re-packaging your offer in a different way and contact them.
  
• Build a follow up program for everyone who buys from you. Use that to maintain contact, make your customer realise you care and probably gain some referrals and testimonials into the bargain.
  
• Don't just carry on with the same old advertising. Be bold and look for something different. Try different publications, divert some of your spend to internet marketing and review your website to make sure it isn't losing you potential customers.
  
• Be more targeted about looking for new customers. Look at your customer base and see which industry sector and size profile produces the best results for you, find out where those sort of businesses hang out and join in with them.
  
• Try networking. There are plenty of events around each with it's own style and visitor profile. It might feel scary the first time but it's worth the effort. Networkers love to help each other and you could well create some useful contacts.

All the best to you for 2009 - may it be your most profitable yet.

Who will be the next economic sacrifice?

The high street has taken a real battering over the last month. Some have gone down deservedly you might say. Woolworths has never really seemed to understand how modern retail works and I'm surprised that they have survived so long really.

MFI had suffered from it's appalling quality and customer service record in the past. Perhaps if they had renamed and re-branded a few years ago they might have been able to survive.

Although I don't grieve the loss of these retailers, who I didn't use anyway, my heart goes out to their staff and the many companies in their supply chain who will all lose out.

During my days in ecommerce I visited many reasonable sized businesses that were in the high street supply chain feeding goods to all of the famous high street names. I remember coming across a significant number of businesses that had one retail chain representing over 80% of it's customer base and, in some cases, 100%.

Most chains work on the 'just in time' stock principal. Which means that the retailer estimates his total supply requirements in advance. After an initial stock up, replenishment is by replacement only and it is up to the supplier to have the stock on hand to provide immediate turn around - with no commitment from the retailer to take the whole consignment if sales are bad, but penalties for you if you can't supply.

I don't know how they slept at night and I said just that to the MDs in question.

When we have a sharp economic downturn that level of reliance puts you on dangerous ground and your business can be wiped out even though your own business management and cash flow are sound.

As small business owners it is always attractive to accept business opportunities that give us 'security' by filling our order book for substantial periods. But it doesn't come without risk. I suspect there are hundreds of small businesses that spent more than 80% of their efforts pandering to MFI and Woolworths who will be left with virtually no business to speak of.

Perhaps our New Years resolution should be to spread our business across more customers and therefore spread the risk?


If you need help with a New Year sales and marketing strategy, particularly using the internet, I'll see if I can help.

The Next Generation Websites

I remember saying, a good few years ago, that the internet would end up like electricity. It would just be piped into every home and business and we wouldn't be using the 'Internet' as such.

It would be just part of every appliance we use in our every day life. Your fridge and microwave would be seamlessly web enabled. Most people who I said that to gave me that strange look that suggested that I lived on another planet.

Well perhaps I wasn't as mad as they thought. I read today an article about Web v3.0.

You may already be conversant with the term Web v2.0. If you haven't heard it then you are certain to have used it. It's the label given to the development of the internet that gave us interactivity - Facebook, Myspace, Wikipedia, YouTube and ecademy. Web v2.0 is that ability to interact with others online and influence through commenting and reviewing.

That was a major step forward in our use of the internet which had previously been simply an information and research tool to view only.

Now Web v3.0 is on it's way. It is the seamless integration of web services and information with every other means of communication and device.

One of the examples went as follows:

A business contact has just rolled into town and called you his mobile phone to tell you he's stopping overnight in a local hotel and is suggesting that you might want to meet up over dinner.

The call from the mobile is already logged through GPS so you know which hotel he's in. A couple of presses on the touch screen of your phone gives a list of nearby restaurants. A further click on your restaurant choice offers menu selections and available booking times. Once booked your car satnav receives the location and route in readiness. Meanwhile your friend gets the same but as walking directions for his mobile phone.

At the same time your fridge has just texted you to let you know that you are low on semi skimmed milk and then offers a new recipe that you might like with a list of ingredients - all of which can be added to your regular on-line supermarket order, due for delivery tomorrow, with one click.

A step too far into the future? It may not be.

Technology such as this relies upon integration of information systems. Currently that information resides on PC's and servers. We have already seen the first wave of internet based systems such as Google docs - the online Microsoft Office look-a-like and more on-line applications that are no longer reliant upon a specific PC or server are just around the corner.

I watched James May's 20th Century program the other night and he told the story of the guy who took us from a multitude of electricity power stations, each with its own voltage and wall plug configuration, to the unified national grid system.

That allowed us to have 'electricity enabled' devices such as vacuum cleaners, plug in electric fires and eventually the TV.

That was electricity's Web v3.0.

Enjoy your 20th century PC - I'm not sure it will be around for much longer!

If you need any help and advice on your bussiness use of the web Alloy CRM offers website profit programs to ensure you achieve Return on Investment

More thoughts on the Credit Crunch

Recent financial events leave us in no doubt that this will trigger employment difficulties in the near future as the effects bite into the supply chain.

The result will be, as it was in the similar period during the early eighties, businesses being very cautious about their spend.

However business hasn’t stopped altogether, it has simply reduced. It is at times like this that smart companies look for new, and cost effective ways to capture a greater percentage of the marketplace.

There are many channels to promote a business, each with its own level of required investment – some substantially more that others.

The internet provides a cost effective platform from which to attract potential customers.

Our research habits have changed out of all recognition over the last few years. The internet is now the first place we turn to for information and help. Any company that does not maximise its web presence is effectively giving away business to its competitors.

However the internet road is not paved with gold. It is hard work, just like any other marketing or advertising campaign.

The big advantage is that Internet Marketing is one of the few mediums that allow you to monitor results and Return on Investment very accurately. The ability to test, measure and modify the individual elements of the campaign on a daily basis means that you are unlikely to throw money away through a wrong decision at the beginning.

Tune up your Sales and Marketing Program or CRM with Alloy CRM

As a member, and current Chapter Director, of a local BNI group I had my 10 minute presentation a couple of weeks ago.

Wishing to create an impact I did something a little out of the ordinary.

Rather than stand up and talk at my fellow members I created a 9 minute video that shows the type of work I do through my Sales and Marketing Strategy business, Alloy CRM, and my business web video work through Alloy Video