Grow Your Business Using Word of Mouth

As a business owner, you probably enjoy what you do, or you probably wouldn’t have been crazy enough to start your venture in the first place. Like me you probably don’t enjoy the constant chasing after the next customer, the time, effort and money you put into advertising and marketing with no guarantee that it will grow our sales is most likely one of the most frustrating thing you do. I heard somewhere once is half the money you spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is you don’t know which half. Wouldn’t it be great if new customers could see for themselves the value in what you do and find you, instead of you having to go find them?

What if your existing customers were so happy with your products or services that they went out of their way to tell the people how great you are and that they should call you right away? Then the only marketing investment you would need would be in getting referrals, making your existing customers your sales team.

A referral strategy shouldn’t be your only strategy for bringing in new customers, especially if you have high growth plans, but for some businesses it could be a far more effective strategy than it currently is. The great thing about a referral strategy is that it is a low-cost way of buying new customers.

Step one of your referrals strategy is to turn your customers into “Raving Fans”. Nobody is going to refer you if your service is just satisfactory – you only get raving fans when you go beyond satisfied customers. Think about what you can do that will make their experience with you memorable – perhaps a small gift, a card on their birthday, or perhaps just the fact that your staff are so friendly and helpful that they make the buying process a pleasure. Remember: Customer Satisfaction is Worthless while Customer Loyalty is Priceless.

Step two is finding out who your loyal customers are, so make sure you have a good record system for your customers’ contact details and then categorize them. Try the ABC system – Awesome, Basic, Can’t Deal with. Then spend more time with the A’s and B’s than you do with the C’s. In fact why not get rid of the C’s all-together?

If you are not really sure who your ABC clients are then one way to find out is to ask them. There are two simple ways to do this:

• Testimonials, ask them to write you a short testimonial to find out what they like about you.
• Customer surveys, ask them some questions and rate the responses. (you can do this with programs like Suurvey Monkey, or via snail mail.

Once you identify your raving fans, be sure to keep in contact with them on a regular basis. The average business spends five times as much on buying new customers as it does on keeping existing ones, that’s more crazy than starting your own business. Set aside a portion of your marketing budget towards keeping in contact and building loyalty with your existing clients, even when they are not buying. A simple method for this is to send out a newsletter, with details of special offers or new products. You can use Mad Mimi or My Emma, and there are probably a handful more that I’m not familiar with.

The next step is to physically ask for a referral, don’t back down on this one, there’s no need to start feeling awkward, you’re asking for something you deserve. Ways to make this easier are to put a referral card in with the purchase, and ask your customer to fill it in later, or get them to invite people to a free event so they can sample your product/service without risk, or give them an information pack to pass on to people they know who might be interested, or even a special offer voucher. There are many more ways to do this just get creative.

Always remember to thank the referrer in a way that will ensure that they like it so much they will do it again and again, and whatever you do, systematize it so that it happens automatically and can be easily delegated to somebody else.

The final step is to think about who you really want as your clients, be genuine and honest. Henry Ford once said “obstacles are those annoying little things that get in your way when you take your eyes off of your goal.”

Paws and Tales Games New MMOG Website Launched

I’ve been quite busy lately with my current project, developing the Paws and Tales Games MMOG Website. Based on Paws and Tales The Animated Series®, Paws and Tales Games aims to provide a fun, safe and educational place online for children and families.

I’ve become more of a Product Manager at this stage in the game, no pun intended. With a new look and improved features such as; streaming video of the animated episodes, educational worksheets that parents and educators can go through with their kids, and easier access to some of the games within the MMOG. The team is also working to complete the new selection of in game avatars that users can choose from.

With the new branding and a new marketing campaign in place I’m looking forward to spending more time focused on the product marketing side of the fence for a while.

If you’re interested go check it out and let me know what you think of the site. I’m always interested in learning more about the overall user experience, game-play, and value that users would see in the site.

The team that I worked with deserves credit for all of their hard work and help in the development of this product, which made my task managing the development of the product both easy and fun.

• Client: Providential Pictures Inc.
• Product: Paws and Tales Games, pawsandtalesgames.com

Team Credits:

NuLayer Inc., led by Mr. J. Brenner and Mr. P. Kieltyka, performed as the Back-End Team and did outstanding work in a short time frame.

Cieo Creative Inc., led by Mr. J. Goodman and Ms. M. Plasterer, performed as the Flash Games Developer and played a key role in the Creative design of the over all game.

IWD Canada Inc., led by Mr. K. White and Mr. B. Kumarasamy, provided the manpower for the new website design and blog for the site.

“Paws and Tales Games” is currently online at: www.pawsandtalesgames.com

“Paws and Tales The Animated Series®” is currently airing on:

CTS TV
(Ontario, Calgary, Edmonton) at 7:30 AM

The Miracle Channel CJIL
(Canada) at 10:00 AM

UCB TV
(United Kingdom)

Please check your local listings for more information.

Updated Services & Resume Page, New Release Version of Paws and Tales Games Website

Just did some clean up on the Services and Resume pages while taking a quick break from the final prepping for a new release version of the current product that I’m managing. Look for a new design, branding and features at pawsandtalesgames.com, starting June 1st, 2009. Be ready for a drastic improvement in the look and feel of the site, while expecting the same great level of functionality. From the testing feedback that I’ve been receiving over the last few weeks it’s like night and day compared to the exiting Beta version of the site. Some of the new features in the Paws and Tales Games World include:

• Updated artwork for both the website and MMOG.
• Free Games page.
• Streaming Episodes of the Paws & Tales Animated Series.
• A What’s New” Blog.
• “Questions for Cubs” worksheets that complement each episode.

Posted Services Page

The services that I can provide to an organization are now posted on the Services page of this site. I have distilled my, almost decade, of work experience into 3 main “Parent Services”. Things always seem to come in threes.

• Managing Projects
• Project Support
• Management Consulting

Shameless Plug: I’m always looking for interesting challenges to take on that will help better a company, non-profit, organization or community. Don’t hesitate to contact me if I can provide these Services for you or your team.