The Business Pod's Blog

When you think of creating a new brand, it’s easy to think about advertising managers sitting around a conference room tossing around ideas with caffeine fueled creativity. However, often the most powerful branding comes from adding a little “fun” to your brand experience. Driven by the Burger King mentality, today’s customers want to do business their way on their time. They want to make their own choices. As business people, it’s our job to make sure then when customers are ready to make their choice, our product or service is their top choice. Below are five secrets to put some spark and imagination into your brand and create an unforgettable brand experience. Secret #1: Tell Your Company’s Unique Brand Story Television shows have long been a part of our culture. When viewers watch television shows, they see stories about characters that we relate to. Remember the Brady Bunch theme song? It tells the story of a lovely lady... well, you know how it goes. Now imagine harne...

How do you define good customer service?  Does that simply mean the satisfactory marketing and sale of a product or service to a customer, or does it mean something else? Is providing good customer service, good enough?  In these days of below average customer service, you may think providing good service will set you apart from the pack. Well, I am here to tell you that nothing less than exemplary service will help you succeed.  By incorporating the “wow” factor into every successful sale, you will achieve greater profits and better customer satisfaction. To achieve the “wow” factor, you must be honest, knowledgeable, friendly, professional and deliver on your promises. Do not over promise, but do not under promise either.  In addition, you must be able to provide a high level of service to everyone who comes in contact with your business. If you do, you’ll also get more referrals from your satisfied clients. “Wow” everyone who comes into contact with ...

If you want to get paid what you're worth here are eight ways to sell value - not price : 1. Be Unique. If there is nothing that differentiates you from your competition you become common. Webster defines the word common as, "ordinary or not special" and the only way buyers select one common service over another is price. Take stock of your skills, experience and knowledge. Are you a specialist in some area? Are you an expert in certain facets of your business? These and other differentiators can make you unique and valuable to a select group of clients. 2. Choose Your Clients Carefully: Don't ever let your clients choose you or you will be at their mercy. If a deal is going to close successfully, the true professional should be in control, not the client. To begin controlling your business, write down the attributes of the people you want as clients and then go out and get them with targeted marketing. I hope the first item on your list of attributes is th...

Since the 19th century business cards were widespread among people of all classes with a business to promote. The earliest form of business cards, known as tradecards, were used as advertising materials and as maps used to direct the public to the merchant’s store. Today business cards are among the most important marketing material that every business must have.  The business card is perhaps the best salesman that you can have. That is why it is essential that it contains much more than your name, address, and contact numbers and services. It should be designed keeping its purpose in mind – that is it being a powerful sales tool.  So let’s start with the design. If you want to create a business card that contains a photo with gradient colors you can try using a glossy finish to ensure that the cards are printed as good as they look on the screen. Or else, you can get disappointed with the print out.    Now let’s come to the strategies you can utilise in busi...

Have you created a core marketing message to use throughout all of your marketing efforts? I'm not talking about some catchy slogan or play on words using the name of your business or the service you provide. It's not some meaningless phrase like "we do it right" or "quality service you can trust." Anybody in business can say those things and they're really basic expectations anyway. A core marketing message clearly and concisely communicates what you're out to do and for who. It speaks to your ideal target market and gets them to respond and seek more information. So many small business owners and professional service providers never take the time to create this for their own business. Most are creating a new message with every new "marketing campaign." They're constantly trying new ideas. And each new idea becomes a new chance to try and come up with that home run message that gets the phone ringing off the hook like never be...

1) Ask everyone to arrive five to ten minutes early. This gives everyone time to socialise, obtain coffee, or organise materials before the meeting. It also ensures that everyone is present at the scheduled starting time. Make this part of the agenda. 2) Discuss sensitive issues with the key participants before the meeting. Use this as an opportunity to listen and gather information on the issues. From this you will understand the different views, needs, and histories. This information can help you prepare the agenda and conduct the meeting. In addition, you may be able to facilitate solutions or strategies for solutions before the meeting. In either case, the result will be a more efficient meeting. 3) Plan small meetings that focus on a single issue. People work more effectively over short periods of time (such as 45 minutes). This also allows you to match experts with issues for more productive meetings. 4) Only invite those who can contribute to at least 50% of the items ...

When was the last time you had to deal with a difficult customer? It was probably and external customer but perhaps it was an internal customer, such as a member of your team, a colleague or even - your boss! I'm sure that you always want to provide exceptional service to both your internal and external customers. However, in the real world, things go wrong and mistakes are made. These "customers" will often judge your level of service based on how you respond to a mistake. Do it well and they'll probably forgive you and possibly even say positive things about your business or your abilities to other people. The important thing to realise when dealing with an upset customer, be they internal or external, is that you must deal with their feelings, then deal with their problem. Upset customers are liable to have strong feelings when you, your product or service lets them down and they'll probably want to "dump" these feeling on you. You don't deal wi...