Once you have compiled a list of customers who have placed orders with you, treat it as your most valuable asset and the pith of your business. Customers who have ordered from you once – and their friends – are very likely to order from you again. Those of them who do not should be your major concern: why haven’t they placed any more orders with you? Is there a problem with your product? Your service? Have they simply forgotten you? To find out, all you need do is ask. Contact in-active customers either by phone or mail, and ask for their opinion on your product or service. Use the replies you get to fix the problem in your product, change your line of products, lower your prices, or revise your sales material. If there really is no problem with your product and your customers have simply forgotten about you (which is usually the case), your questionnaires will serve as reminders and return many of them to active status.

2 Ways to use your Business Cards Successfully
by Ron E. Gielgun

1. Make your business card unique and graphically appealing

Once in a while, even the most untidy of business people will sort through their various business cards accumulated and throw away the least important ones. However, interesting or unusual business cards may be allowed to remain regardless of their immediate importance. To make sure your cards survive this selection process, make them unique and graphically appealing.

-> Choose an intriguing color scheme
-> Have important or useful data printed on the back
-> Use holograms and optical illusions
-> Use translucent plastic instead of paper

If your card looks expensive, it will be harder for your prospects to dispose of it.

2. Your business card must be worth money to prospects

Prospects will not throw away your business cards if they are worth something to them. Useful information printed on the back of the business card might help. However, for prospects to think of your card as a real windfall, which should never be thrown away, its value must translate into dollars and cents. To do this, contact

-> Local restaurants
-> Barber shops
-> Pizza parlors
-> Photos
-> Fast food chains

Get them to give anyone presenting your business card a discount on their products or services.

They will not be doing you any favors by agreeing - it is you who will be giving them free publicity and who will be referring new customers to them. In return, your card will become a discount card that is not only worth saving, but that your prospects will want to carry with them at all times. Have the business card made with durable material (e.g. plastic)

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