The Power of Personalization

Use these 3 smart tactics to personalize marketing messages and increase sales.

By Kim T. Gordon   |   September 12, 2007

Marketers have found a new opportunity for more intimate and direct communication with consumers. Not so long ago, families gathered around the TV; now individuals surf the web and watch video on personal, handheld devices. Consumers have grown comfortable with--and even come to expect--a one-on-one dialogue with marketers. And personalized marketing messages are a smart way to get customers' attention and deliver communications that increase sales.

As a small-business owner, you're in the enviable position of interacting with customers you know on a first-name basis. You can more easily maintain a database with in-depth customer information than larger businesses. The key is to use this important data to ensure your communications strike a personal chord with customers.

Personalization is a powerful  marketing tactic that's easy to incorporate. Here are three ways to create messages that personally appeal to customers.

1. Transform mass e-mail into one-to-one.
E-mail is an exceptional tool for small businesses thanks to its low cost of implementation and high return on investment when sent to an in-house, permission-based customer or prospect list. While e-mails range from product promotions to soft-sell e-newsletters, in some instances, a one-to-one approach can have a more powerful impact.

For example, a coaching client of mine, Porro & Associates in Washington, DC is headed by Jeffrey Porro, Ph.D., a talented and experienced writer who specializes in crafting op-ed pieces and speeches for organizations and top executives. His prospect list consists of public relations and grassroots advocacy groups as well as major associations. Not only does Porro send them a monthly e-newsletter, but he also regularly sends personalized e-mails with examples of successes he has achieved for clients. Each e-mailing of this kind generates Porro & Associates several meetings and continues to bring in high-level work.

When Porro landed an op-ed piece in the Chicago Tribune for one of his advocacy clients, he e-mailed copies of it to his prospect database, personally addressing each individual by name. The e-mail had a simple lead-in introducing the article as something of interest, followed by a suggestion that the prospect meet with him to talk about doing similar work for their organization, and closed with Porro's e-mail signature.

For this e-mail tactic to work, the simpler, more direct and less "crafted" your message appears, the better. Avoid graphics and other advertising design elements--including photos--which you might use in less personal forms of e-mail solicitations.

2. Personalize your offers.
Whether you're a retailer, e-commerce merchant or direct-mail marketer, if you sell merchandise, you need to know your customers' purchases, how much they spend per sale, and when or how often they buy. Knowledge of past behavior is a valuable tool for predicting future purchases. Not only can this information guide your business  and merchandising decisions, but it's also critical for creating personalized marketing messages that increase sales. For instance, suppose a customer purchased jogging pants out of a wide range of clothing from your website or catalog. By customizing an e-mail or direct-mail follow-up based on this purchase history, you could successfully sell this customer additional exercise attire and related products.

The key is to look at how Jane Doe shops and then personalize your offers to her based on her past purchases and preferences. Make your marketing follow the customer--not the other way around--and truly customize it to her needs. If you address your customer by name and make relevant product offers, the one-to-one relationship you develop will keep her coming back for additional purchases.

3. Put it in writing.
What better way to make your message stand out than to express it in a handwritten note? After all, with fast online and mobile communications the norm, a handwritten note emphasizes that you've taken the time and thought to communicate something in a special way.

Entrepreneurs nationwide swear by the effectiveness of personal, handwritten notes for making a strong, positive impression. Send anything from thank you notes to meeting confirmations, depending on the type of business you operate and what you market. A financial management company in Norcross, Georgia, for example, markets primarily via networking, and its president follows up every contact with a handwritten note. It's a tactic that pays off, as the company boasts revenue growth of 25 percent year after year.

With all the hustle and bustle of running a business, you may have fallen out of touch with what's hot in technology and which of the latest and greatest gadgets can help you in your business. But never fear--from hardware to tech services, we've compiled these tips to bring you up to speed. 

Start Controlling Your Tech--Before It Controls You
1. Increase Communication With Far-Flung Employees
It sounds basic, but the first step in setting up a technology solution for working with offsite employees is to figure out just what you need to do with your extended work force. Most growing businesses with multiple work sites will have two particular needs at the top of their list: the ability for employees to talk with each other on a minute-by-minute basis and the ability to have access to files away from the office. To add to the challenge, these needs have to be met at a price point that won't strain the budget.

Meeting these requirements doesn't require deep secrets or complex technology. Basically, it's about e-mail, telephones and IM. For e-mail, outsourcing can provide extra features, higher security and web access. For IM, you can use the many free solutions offered online. And if you want access to customers no matter what IM platform they're using, try chat clients like Trillian that allow you to cross platforms. And for that pesky file-sharing problem? Look for in-house servers that offer secure web access and online file sharing.

2. Use Wiki to Ease Collaboration
Chances are, you may be familiar with wiki by way of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia fed by contributions from thousands of people. A wiki is a web page that multiple users can collaborate on--it's generally basic in design and easy to use. Now, like the blogging phenomenon, wikis are starting to work their way into the business arena.

Ross Mayfield, CEO and co-founder of Palo Alto, California-based Socialtext, a group productivity and wiki solution provider, says wikis have two main benefits: They boost group productivity and also act as a business knowledge base where information is logged and easily accessible. The constantly-changing nature of wiki means it may never be completely finished, but it does remain up-to-date. Mayfield says candidates for wiki use include companies that generate a lot of documentation through groups, are team-project-oriented or seek a collaborative writing environment. Just freeing your inbox from the heaps of cc'ed e-mails and boosting productivity can be worth the investment.

3. Create a Continuity Strategy
You never know how much you depend on technology until you don't have access to it anymore. If a disaster strikes, you may not only suffer direct losses of data and hardware, but indirect losses due to downtime. But with some foresight and planning, you can avoid sustained downtime--and lost profits.

First, create a broad, holistic plan to ensure business continuity, not just disaster recovery. This plan should involve every part of your business, such as processes, operations, assets, employees and so on. Your overall goal: to prevent business disruption--then minimize it if it does occur. To this end, you should:

• Conduct an impact analysis. How much downtime, loss of productivity, loss of data, loss of revenues and so on can your company sustain? For how long?
• Develop a plan for dealing with mission-critical (revenue-impacting, customer-facing) functions and business-critical (back office, supply chain, e-mail) functions under various disruptive scenarios. Determine which business technologies to employ.
• Educate your workers about the plan before a crisis occurs.
• From time to time, revisit the plan to make sure it remains practicable and viable.

4. Do You Really Need That Tech?
Before you make a large tech expenditure, make sure you actually need whatever new technology you want to buy. Inventory all your current PCs, printers and software, and look for opportunities to consolidate purchases, standardize configurations and root out duplication. A recent study of IT purchasing by New York City consulting firm McKinsey & Co. included one example company that had 30 percent more printers than it needed. The company was also able to reduce PC configurations from 10 to three. To continue spending smart, pick a team of people--be sure to include at least one IT expert--and meet with them regularly to discuss what they need and how to save on it.

Protecting Your Business and Your Data
5. No More Passwords
Biometrics is the use of body measurements to identify people. These technologies rely on the uniqueness of the human body to identify individuals, literally measuring your biological features and behaviors. The technology can scan your fingertips, hands, face, iris, retina, voice pattern or even behavioral characteristics. Eventually, passwords may become unnecessary since biometrics provide a convenient replacement and don't require memorizing obscure combinations of letters and numbers.

Fingerprint identification is making its way into portable devices like cell phones, PDAs and laptops--hardware that's vulnerable when lost or stolen. Since businesses can't afford to lose their data, fingerprint readers make more sense than password protection. The appearance of fingerprint readers in cell phones is the most recent development (coming soon to the US), but they already exist on some laptops and PDAs. External fingerprint scanners have been available for a while, and are growing in popularity.

6. Protect Yourself From Identity Theft
What can you do to make sure your business information isn't stolen? How can you make sure that no one charges personal purchases to your accounts and ruins your business credit history? Limit the employees who have access to sensitive information, screen outsourcing companies thoroughly, and always encrypt sensitive data on your computer network. One form of business ID theft happens when criminals forge payroll checks against your business accounts, so always guard check stock like cash. And don't use preprinted check stock; instead, encourage direct deposit, and shred sensitive documents on a regular basis.

7. Catch 'Em on Camera
Wherever you need an extra set of eyes, a wireless video surveillance camera can help. Don't expect to see sharp details, especially in poor lighting situations, but do expect cameras you can monitor remotely via internet. Just plug them in wherever there's a power supply (although cameras without power cords are on the horizon). Just don't forget to enable your Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and password protection to keep your video signal away from wireless snoops.

8. Don't Let Power Surges Wipe You Out
A power conditioner is a device that hooks up between an electrical outlet and your electronic equipment to keep the flow of electricity constant. A UPS device, or uninterruptible power supply, is basically a battery back-up. It buys you time in case of a catastrophe because if the power goes down completely, the UPS kicks in and gives you a few precious minutes to save your work and shut down your computer. Higher-end UPS devices often come with handy software that automatically saves your work and shuts the computer down as needed.

Besides protecting you against full power outages, a UPS also acts as a surge protector, guarding against the sags and spikes that can cause equipment headaches. For added protection, look for a UPS with a phone jack. Running your modem line through a UPS protects your computer from "back door" damage. Don't forget that lightning strikes that cause sudden electrical spikes can travel through phone lines as well as electrical lines.

9. Back It Up Daily
It's crucial that you back up your business data every day. If you have a small amount of data (less than 1 Gigabyte), recordable CDs are inexpensive--you should be able to buy a year's supply for less than $200 at most office supply stores. You can save even more money by buying CD-RWs that can be erased and re-recorded over and over again.

Regularly check to make sure that you can actually recover data from your backup disk, tape or CD-ROM. Try downloading specific files from the disk onto your home PC or a computer that is configured differently from your office server. And make at least two backup disks, tapes or CD-ROMs, and keep one in a secure offsite location, protected from natural disasters and theft.

One more thing: Don't forget that whoever hosts your website may also suffer a disaster. If the computer server on which your website is located is destroyed, your site is gone. Make sure that your ISP or web hosting service gives you a CD-ROM containing all the HTML, Java scripts and other software code for your site. Whenever you update or change your site, be sure to get an updated CD-ROM for the entire site.

Ditch the Wires
10. Say No to Dead Spots
Antennas and repeaters are the two most popular ways to stretch your signal on the cheap. Directional and omnidirectional are two terms you'll hear a lot. The omni-directional antenna boosts the signal for 360 degrees, while the directional antenna focuses the extended signal in one direction. There are also Wireless PC Cards with antennas for laptops and desktop antennas that attach to a desktop wireless network card. When selecting range-extending hardware, check with your hardware's manufacturer to avoid compatibility snags.

Repeaters are usually more expensive than antennas. A repeater acts as a relay station to pick up your wireless signal and bounce it along into those hard-to-reach corners and dead spots. Keep in mind that repeaters effectively cut bandwidth while expanding range, so use them sparingly.

11. Mesh Networks
The next step in wireless networking may be mesh networking. Also called multihop networking, it extends the range and strength of a network by using multiple access points. The more nodes you have interconnecting, the better. Each node acts as a router and can talk to other nodes instead of having them all talk back to a main base station. That's a boon for flexibility and reliability: If one node goes down or is too busy, the rest can reroute the traffic. Mesh networking can be used to cover big areas, like an entire city, or older office buildings that give regular Wi-Fi setups fits. It can also extend networks without setting up new base stations.

12. Use Wi-Jacks
While Wi-Fi is a convenient advance, installing a large wireless network can be costly. Large offices and older buildings require special care to extend the network to every nook and cranny. Wi-Jacks are the latest hardware offering aimed at making Wi-Fi easier and cheaper for businesses. Wi-Jacks are Wi-Fi wall outlets that fit an access point into a standard data wall outlet (the kind you're familiar with for Ethernet use) so you avoid installing costly access points on the ceiling. Lower installation costs permit more of a grid approach to building out a wireless network--good news for larger networks, where getting adequate coverage is an issue. Small businesses will still be content with standard hardware, but if you're considering upgrading to wireless or moving into a new building, check into Wi-Jacks.

Great Data Storage Solutions for Your Business
13. Increasing Memory the Easy Way
If you're running a one-person show, your network probably consists of just your computer and printer. If you're hitting memory capacity on that one PC, your best storage solution is an external hard drive that connects via USB or Firewire cable. Installation is a snap since most USB cables now install themselves, and they're easy to use since they just appear on your computer as another drive. You can use your new external hard drive to back up your files or simply to save memory-intensive files and graphics. And at less than $200 bucks for 200GB, they're a bargain.

14. DVDs--Not Just for Movies Anymore
Want a quick and easy way to store data? For periodic backups, DVDs are still cost effective. DVDs with DL (double layer) technology allow you to burn up to 8.5GB of data on each disk, up from the standard 4.7GB. And while double-layer DVDs may be slightly more expensive and have lower burn speeds, they make up for it in capacity.

15. Access Stored Documents Online
Web-based storage services allow business users to store their documents and other digital files on third-party servers and are usually subscription-based. This helps businesses continue to operate if there are any outages, crises or disasters at the main office. It also allows convenient sharing of large files and real-time collaboration between a business and its partners without clogging company e-mail systems and servers. Online storage services also provide access to content from anywhere there's an Internet connection. They reduce the cost of maintaining, storing and managing hard-copy documents on-site and reduce the risk of lost or misfiled paper documents. They are also scalable as your business grows. One important caveat: Your business must use a broadband connection to take advantage of these online solutions.

16. Share--and Protect--Data
Network attached storage (NAS) devices are dedicated storage that hook up to any available Ethernet port, so they're on a LAN rather than a server. It's an easily scalable solution for storing, organizing and sharing data among users on one or several interconnected networks. A big portion of NAS hardware is made up of hard drives so they're ideal for backing up data. And if they're RAID-ready (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), that's a plus because RAID management software allows you to share and/or duplicate your data across multiple disks, so if one goes down, you can make a quick recovery.

17. Memory on the Go
External flash memory comes in all shapes and sizes, one of the most popular being mini USB drives that are about the size of a thumb and plug into your computer's USB port. Their small size makes them extremely convenient for transferring data and files from one computer to another and they can even be attached to your keychain. For these devices, memory capacity averages 512 megabytes, but can scale all the way to 16 gigabytes. Other flash memory formats include SmartMedia, Compact Flash, Memory Stick and Secure Digital cards.

Communicate Better With Technology
18. Automate Your Customer Communications
In a world where fewer and fewer customer interactions actually take place in person, implementing CRM technology can be an excellent way to provide a more personalized touch when working with your customers.

Sales force automation tools help track your pool of prospects as they move from interested leads to paying customers. Customer support automation improves the process of handling customers so you can better satisfy them while minimizing your costs. Whether you support your customers through a call center, in-person or online, applications range from live online help, searchable knowledge bases where customers can look up answers to previously asked questions, and case tracking to ensure no inquiry gets lost.

19. Reduce Your Phone Bills
VoIp (Voice over Internet Protocol) allows you to make phone calls over the internet. It's an increasingly popular tool that can help growing businesses save on their communications bills and it offers some enticing features. Find me/follow me services can forward phone calls to wherever your are and employees located in home offices can be hooked up with in-office extensions, so dialing is the same as if you're calling somebody two doors down in the same building. For frequent travelers, IP softphones can allow you to call from your hotel room.

Choose a provider based on call features, its experience with growing businesses, network quality and price. Check in with your in-house IT person or IT consultant about getting all your various offices onto the same VoIP page.

20. Simplify Your Life With One Inbox
Getting your voice mails, faxes, e-mails and instant messages in one inbox is now possible through unified messaging (UM), also known as unified communications (UC). You may already get e-mail forwarded to your handheld or smartphone, as well as use these devices to access your voice mail and to send text messages. But vendors are also now offering services that combine your voice, e-mail and fax inboxes into one account, accessible via a mobile phone or internet-connected computer. You can listen to your voice mail on your computer or your faxes and e-mails via telephone using text-to-speech technology. All this functionality costs around $10 a month depending on where you live and your messaging needs.

21. Choosing the Right E-Mail Provider
E-mail is considered the number-one productivity application for business owners, so choosing the right e-mail provider for your business is crucial. Like any other technology acquisition, e-mail must enable the specific goals of your business. So before approaching e-mail providers, first understand your business objectives and internal capabilities by considering the following issues:

• The number of employees you have
• Whether your business has a centralized or distributed structure (i.e., do you have any telecommuters or satellite offices?)
• The applications you plan to operate with e-mail, including the size and types of anticipated attachments
• The volume of interaction expected with customers, partners and suppliers
• The frequency of use, time-of-day usage and other expectations
• Whether you have enough in-house expertise to implement and manage an internal system or if you need to outsource that function

Finding the Best Tech Consultants and Service Providers
22. Finding an E-Mail Service Provider
Every business needs e-mail, but there are a wide variety of offerings on the market. So take your time, ask the right questions and conduct a thorough investigation of what's available. It's worth the extra effort to select the e-mail provider that's right for your business.

When searching, you'll want to interview several potential providers. Although the questions you'll ask them will be specific to the needs of your business, this list should provide a good starting point:

• How long have you been in business?
• What features do you support beyond basic send, receive, reply and forward?
• What kinds of security do you offer?
• What is your pricing structure?
• How are backups and restores handled?
• What kind of service level agreement (SLA) do you offer to ensure e-mail reliability and availability?
• Can e-mail be accessed remotely?
• Is live customer support available?

23. Choosing a Web Host
Selecting a web host can be tricky. Thousands of services charge countless fees, make all sorts of promises and raise seemingly endless questions. To help choose one that'll get the job done, here are key questions to ask:

• How reliable is your service?
• What kind of performance do you offer?
• How good is your support?
• What will it cost?
• How do you handle security?
• How much control do I have?
• Can you handle the technology I'm using?

Actually comparing hosts can be difficult, so a good policy is to quietly set up an account and test the host--kick the tires, so to speak--for several weeks before announcing your presence to the world. Isn't that expensive? You bet, when setup fees are factored in. But more expensive--and embarrassing--is to make a big push for traffic, only to have your host drop the ball and leave you with cranky visitors who can't quite make it in. Better to know your host is operating smoothly before inviting guests to the party.

24. Doing Due Diligence
Here's a word of caution: Finding a website consultant can be tricky. Although the web continues to grow at a rapid pace and has become a useful tool for both buyers and sellers, it's also quite unwieldy. As a result, very few organized associations or websites exist to help people find reputable web design firms. So when you do locate a potential design partner, make sure the company you want to work with is reputable. Just how can you do this? Check out a list of sites the company's worked on and look closely at its own site. Ask about arrangements for maintaining the site, and make sure your new designer is interested in your company and its goals.

25. Getting Your Website Built
Countless small businesses rely on web consultants every day to design and build their websites, enhance existing sites, and put together the pieces of each company's distinctive e-commerce strategy. If you're trying to get your company's site up and running, you can choose among independent site developers, web design shops, technology consulting firms, system integrators, traditional advertising and PR firms, and interactive agencies. Some of these outsource the website hosting and site promotion functions, while others keep these functions in-house. In addition, web design and strategic consulting are often provided by web hosting companies.

And like the web consultants themselves, the variety of prices that consultants charge for their services are extreme: They can charge several hundred dollars for a simple site consisting of a few pages to $1 million or more for a more sophisticated e-commerce site with such features as easily updated product databases, search engines, animated product demonstrations, secure online transactions, and audio and video enhancements. In addition, web consultants vary in how they price their services: Some consultants, typically individual designers, charge by the hour; others, usually web design firms, charge by the project. In general, however, experts say that consultants or web hosting companies can put together a basic, professional-looking website for $1,500 to $5,000 (not including monthly hosting charges), and an e-commerce site for about $10,000 to $50,000.

26. Hiring IT Consultants
You wouldn't dream of tackling your accounting on your own, so why take on your IT strategy by yourself? Fortunately, there are thousands of service companies dedicated to helping with that problem. IT consultants, or technology solutions providers, can decide which hardware and software you should use, where to host your website, or how to protect yourself from hackers or viruses.

• How much can you expect to pay a solutions provider? It depends. An electrical contractor asked one consulting firm to troubleshoot problems with its billing system. The firm found that the contractor's tape backup wasn't working, its antivirus software was outdated and its network printer was not set up efficiently. The proposed solution cost $3,000. Another small company, a seven-person firm that helps larger companies outsource HR functions, invested in three high-powered servers with a firewall with the same IT consultant. Such solutions can start at $5,000.

Improving Your Website
27. Use Autoresponders
Autoresponders are pre-written e-mails that are automatically sent on your behalf so they'll help you provide great customer service and free up your time to do other things in your business. You can use autoresponders to confirm orders placed online, as well as to notify customers when their order ships, so customers are reassured that their order's been placed and processed without problems and they won't have to call or e-mail to check on their order.

You can also fulfill orders through autoresponders if, for example, you sell downloadable software, subscriptions or e-books, you can set up your system to automatically send e-mails that allow access to a password-protected area of your site via a link in the e-mail or by including a password to access the content. This "instant gratification" factor is a great incentive for impulse buyers and impatient online shoppers to purchase your product. You can also send follow-up e-mails like thank-you notes, one of the most effective after-sales techniques. Sending individual e-mails to customers thanking them for buying from you and inviting them to come back would be too time consuming to be efficient; autoresponders can make it happen with little effort from you.

28. Easy Navigation
Make it easy for site visitors to find what they're looking for by making navigation on your site simple. Make sure the following information is easy to find:

Wireless Business

1. Contact information, such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses and physical location.
2. Product information, including detailed descriptions of your products or services, including prices.
3. Samples of your products or previous work.
4. Support, including product information, troubleshooting help, FAQs, etc.
5. Shopping, so customers can buy the products online or find a physical location where your products are sold.
6. Company information, such as background information on the business and the management team.
7. News and announcements, including press releases and updated product or service enhancements.
8. An easy way to get back to your home page. The home page is where all paths begin in the customer's mind, and they want to be able to get back to your home page easily.

29. Use Web Analytics
Web analytics track the behavior of your site's visitors. What pages do they visit most? What are the popular paths through your Web site? On which pages do they leave? When customers visit your website, they want information and they want it now. If they can't find what they're looking for, they can get frustrated pretty quickly and leave, or worse--they could wind up looking to one of your competitors for what they need. Site-surfing patterns will show you what pages to modify to better serve the interests of your potential customers.

Web analytics solutions can also usually track search engine positioning, e-mail campaigns, banner ads and other promotional programs. Some solutions provide sales data in addition to visitor data. This enables you to enhance ad campaigns and the corresponding site pages for maximum sales, not just traffic. 

Beefing Up Your Company's IT Security
30. How Secure is Your Wireless Network?
The use of wireless networks within many organizations and businesses is becoming more and more widespread. This includes banks, manufacturing assembly lines, airports, restaurants and one-person home offices. What's not so widespread, however, is the employment of information security measures in these wireless applications and networks.

Constant monitoring of access points is one of the best ways to keep a wireless network secure. The most basic security measure you can take with your wireless devices is to immediately change their factory-set passwords and enable encryption keys (commonly known as WEP) so that data transmitted through the wireless network is more protected.

31. Use a Firewall
A firewall is a software application that controls access to your network at the "perimeter," i.e., where it connects to the Internet. This "controlled access" ensures that internet users only have access to particular services provided by your company's network (web servers, e-mail servers, etc.). Any attempts to access unauthorized information or services are blocked.

You can also use your firewall to block employees from accessing some outside information services, such as non-business-related websites or internet chat. Other common firewall add-ons include antivirus capabilities and privacy protection services to block proprietary information from leaving the building in any electronic form (e-mail, file transfer, virus activity, etc.).

For an added measure of protection, you can also add intrusion detection to your firewall. When a firewall allows internet users access to a company's website or other services, system vulnerabilities can also let in hackers. Intrusion detection systems can detect this type of activity and block the would-be hackers before they can do damage or steal vital company information.

13 Costly Marketing Mistakes Part 1

To be successful and profitable, you must 'START' using the most effective marketing strategies possible within your overall marketing plans.

Less obvious, is the fact that you must also 'STOP' using the most ineffective, money-wasting marketing strategies.

I call them The 13 Costly Marketing Mistakes. While this list doesn't cover 'all' of the possible marketing mistakes, it does describe some of the most expensive, destructive and most 'common' made by many owners of traditional and home based businesses.

1. ONE-STEP MARKETING

The 'One-Step' marketing strategy is the most common marketing strategy used by most small business owners today. It's everywhere -- and it's a big money waster.

It consists of an ad, flyer or other marketing vehicle that simply 'announces' the business name, possibly lists a few basic features of the product or service and ends with an address and phone number.

The prospect is now expected to respond to this type of marketing piece by immediately purchasing the product or service.

Unless you are offering an extremely 'high-demand,' 'hard-to-get' product/service (an original Van Gogh painting for $100, Super Bowl tickets, etc.) this marketing strategy 'almost always' results in little or no response.

This strategy totally disregards the 'psychological buying sequence' of consumers. It's very much like walking up to a stranger at a party and asking 'Would you marry me?' What do you think the response would be?

2. NOT KNOWING WHICH EFFORTS ARE WINNERS OR LOSERS

Not knowing for sure which of your marketing efforts are producing results and which are big 'money-wasters' is a guaranteed way to minimize your results.

Even new businesses are investing in up to a 'dozen' marketing devices at any given time. Not only are we talking about traditional media, like newspaper or Yellow Page ads but 'many' others that may not be as obvious.

These marketing devices are either contributing to your business profit or destroying it. Most business owners don't have a clue as to which is which.

If they did, they could easily guarantee increasing their profitable results by investing more in the winning devices and eliminating the money-wasting, losing devices.

3. NOT TELLING YOUR PROSPECTS WHAT TO DO

Expecting your prospects to 'know' exactly what you want them to do guarantees low results.

Never, never, never assume. Take a look at most small business ads and you'll see that the business owners are almost always 'assuming' that the prospect will know exactly what they want them to do . . . without telling them.

At the bottom of the ad there will be a phone number and an address. Usually nothing more. Ask one of these business owners what they 'wanted' the prospect to do after reading their ad and they will most likely reply, 'Buy my product! Isn't it obvious??'

The answer is a resounding 'No!'

For one, there is rarely enough information in the typical marketing piece for a consumer to make an 'immediate' buying decision. Therefore, that can't be the action expected from the consumer.

Second, the marketing competition for the prospect's consumer dollars is fierce. The prospect is usually exposed to dozens of ads for basically the same product/service. Obviously, he or she is not going to take 'action' on every single ad.

How do 'you' insure that they will respond to 'your' marketing piece and take the specific action you intended?

Certainly, not by 'assuming' that they will 'know' or 'figure out' what you want them to do.

In order for a business owner to tell prospects exactly what action to take next, the business owner must know what that action should be. Once you know the 'psychological buying sequence' the next expected action becomes obvious.

4. CALL FOR MORE INFORMATION

Closely related to mistake number 3, is the marketing piece that again simply 'announces' the business name, lists a few basic features of the product or service, ends with an address and phone number . . . and then asks the prospect to 'Call for More Information.'

One of the last things a prospect wants, is to feel dumb. What information should they ask for? Does this mean that the business doesn't have a brochure or any other literature? Are they going to have to take notes?? Will there be a test?

The other thing 'no prospect' wants is to feel pressured. Whether it's true or not, the average prospect 'assumes' that they'll get a 'high-pressured' sales pitch if they call. Most do not want to risk this pain.

Therefore, the 'Call for More Information' tag is almost always ignored.

While 'some' prospects may not have a problem responding to this 'vague' directive, the majority do. If you doubt this . . . try putting it at the bottom of your marketing pieces. You'll soon be convinced that few prospects, if any, respond to the 'Call for More Information' marketing mistake.

5. FOCUSING ON YOU INSTEAD OF YOUR CUSTOMER

It seems natural to tell your prospects about you and your company. We're proud of what we do and how we do it and we 'assume' that our prospects will be impressed and motivated to take action.

'We've been in business for 16 years...'

'We are an award winning, cutting-edge organization...'

'We are equipped with the latest micro-techno, laser-guided, nuclear-activated widget-gizmos...'

Too often these phrases evoke the following responses from prospects:

'So what?'

'Big deal.'

'Who cares?'

Please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that your marketing materials shouldn't include background information about you and your company and/or specifications about your product/service. I'm saying that this should be 'supportive' information, not your 'primary' marketing message.

It's a costly marketing mistake to think that prospects 'care' about the same things you care about.

They rarely do.

However, they do care deeply about something entirely different. Once you know what that is, and you address it powerfully and clearly in your marketing, you will begin to draw prospects to you like a magnet.

6. NOT USING EFFECTIVE FREE/LOW-COST MARKETING METHODS

Ask the typical small business owner what marketing is, and he/she will probably reply, 'Advertising.'

What kinds of advertising?

'Yellow Page ads, newspaper ads, magazine ads, radio ads, television ads, billboards, bus cards, Val-Pak mailings, etc.'

While all of these advertising devices can certainly be a 'part' of a successful marketing strategy, there are also dozens of 'low-cost' and 'no-cost' marketing methods available to the small business marketer.

By simply discovering and applying these simple 'low-cost,' 'no-cost' methods, you will be able to significantly stretch the effectiveness and profitability of your marketing efforts.

Walk into any McDonald's, order a Quarter Pounder, and the clerk will invariably ask, "Do you want fries with that?" Each affirmative answer adds $1 or more to that particular sale. If just a fraction of McDonald's' 54 million daily customers say yes to that question, that's millions of extra dollars in the burger biggie's pocket.

The same strategy is important for startups. You haven't yet built a large customer base, so you need to coax as much money as possible from each person who does show up. It's the old story: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

The issue at this stage isn't market share but wallet share. Boost the dollar value of your average sale, and you boost your cash flow and bottom line. Here's how you can bring in more of those sales.

Entrepreneur.com

1. Crunch the numbers. Begin by figuring out the dollar value of your average sale. If you have 20 customers and total sales of $1,000 on a typical day, your average sale is $50. Then you can set a new target and plot your strategy to hit it.

Depending on your business, you might also want to calculate your average sales per hour, day of the week, employee, location, marketing campaign or other variables. Frequently the answers will lead directly to a plan of action. If your numbers are low on Mondays, for example, you can plan special Monday promotions. If one ad typically brings in a $2 sale and another weighs in at $12, you can adjust accordingly.

2. Change your product or service mix. Adding or subtracting to what you sell can help grow your typical ticket size. Take the case of a bakery that had an average sale of just $5. The problem was they offered virtually no higher-priced items. When they added specialty cakes and other premium goods, that figure jumped to $14.

The same effect can sometimes be achieved by dumping lower-priced products. If you sell three different toasters, drop the $35 model and the customer will spend $45 or $55 instead.

3. Bundle your offerings. Encourage customers to spend more by giving them a package deal on multiple products or services. At McDonald's, the bundles are Extra Value Meals that include an entrée, fries and a drink. At a car repair shop, it might be a tune-up and lube job rolled into one visit.

You can also bundle your time. One computer repair company that wasn't making enough money charging by the hour started selling services in 10, 20 or 30-hour blocks. That new option yielded higher average sales and ensured return business.

4. Go for the add-on sale. "Do you want fries with that?" is a textbook example, but the same approach works for any business. One attorney I know started asking whether every client had an up-to-date will. Two out of three didn't. The result was an extra $4,000 in average weekly billings. Later he repeated the feat with living wills.

Another way to drive add-on sales is to create a checklist of related products for a particular kind of purchase. If you're a hardware store, a paint customer might also need brushes and drop cloths. Hand him a checklist and he'll likely walk out with more than a can of Antique White.

5. Create weekly or monthly sales challenges. Focusing your sales team on a particular area for a week or a month can also generate add-on business. When I owned photocopy shops, we pushed colored paper one week and banners the next. Some grocery stores offer specials at the checkout counter to trigger impulse sales.

6. Take hidden products or services out of the shadows. I once coached an insurance broker who sold only 1.27 policies per customer despite offering more than 14 types of insurance. A survey revealed that most clients didn't know he sold those products. He was failing to show his entire hand. Signage, newsletters and other tactics can help.

7. Train your staff to make the higher dollar sale. Sometimes simply making personnel aware of your target sale value will help you get there. If they're just selling what the customer came in for, you're not going to hit your numbers. Tell them what you're looking for, and then give them the tools to achieve it.

8. Raise your prices. If you're just opening your doors, price your products or services on the high side and figure out how to offer more value. Being the cheapest isn't necessarily going to pay the bills, and you'll be left high and dry when a competitor beats your price.

If you've been in business for a while, don't be afraid to bump up your prices by 5 or 10 percent. Most customers won't care (You don't stop going to your local Starbucks or your hair salon when they raise their rates.) and you'll increase your margins, so a few lost customers won't make a difference.

By using tactics like these to maximize every transaction, you help keep the cash flowing while you're getting your business off the ground. Once you're airborne, these same strategies can develop your flight plan for generating peak profits. Master the art of supersizing your sales early, and it will pay off many times over.

100 Free Business Cards

12 Months of Holiday Promotions

Year-round, holidays are great hooks for all types of marketing promotions, provided you think outside the box.

By Kim T. Gordon   |   February 14, 2007

If you think holiday marketing  begins just after Halloween and ends on New Year's Day, think again. For most small businesses, holidays from Father's Day to Administrative Professionals' Day provide terrific hooks on which to hang marketing promotions.

To get you thinking outside the gift box, here are 12 months of holidays to consider--plus creative ideas for using less traditional holidays to grab your customers' attention.

February
Valentine's Day is a bonanza for restaurateurs and jewelers, but other entrepreneurs also can use the day to tell customers they're appreciated. Show your company's love by sending letters with special rewards, such as money off a purchase, to your best customers or clients. Rewards at this holiday, rather than just at the more traditional times of year, will grab attention and be appreciated.

Also in February are Groundhog Day, Mardi Gras and Presidents Day. Want to be inventive? A professional services firm could enhance its client relations (and loosen an otherwise stiff image) by throwing a Mardi Gras-themed party, while an air conditioning and heating contractor could send a direct mail piece using Groundhog Day as a hook, offering customers a special discount on heating maintenance services to help them get through six more weeks of winter.

March
The two biggest holidays on my calendar in March are St. Patrick's Day and my birthday. Granted, my birthday may not be of any interest to your customers, but they'll definitely enjoy being appreciated on their own birthdays. Include a field in your customer database for birth dates, and depending on your type of business, send a gift, card or reward.

As for St. Patrick's Day, there are many fun tie-ins--from the color green to the luck of the Irish--you can develop into marketing hooks. And the first day of spring is March 21. Traditionally, this is the kick-off for major spring retail promotions.

April
Ah, April Fools' Day. Businesses large and small have used this day as an opportunity to draw public attention. In one well-publicized April Fools' hoax, Taco Bell placed ads in major newspapers announcing it had purchased the Liberty Bell to help reduce the federal deficit and was planning to move it to Irvine, California. Americans were furious. There were more than 400 TV mentions and thousands of newspaper and radio mentions worth millions in media coverage, though Taco Bell sent out a news release announcing the hoax just a few hours later. The smart promotional gambit resulted in a $500,000 sales increase for the company on April 1 and a $600,000 increase on April 2.

Easter will be celebrated on April 8 this year with traditional spring sales at most retailers. Earth Day is on April 22, and you don't have to be a green company to take on an environmentally friendly promotion, such as planting trees and letting your customers know about it. And let's not overlook Administrative Professionals’ Day (formerly known as Secretaries' Day) on April 25. This holiday is prompting small businesses to take action: The Vermont Teddy Bear Co., for instance, has added a page to its website to sell gifts for the occasion.

May
The two biggest holidays in May are Mother's Day on May 13 and Memorial Day on May 28. Small businesses in the hospitality, consumer services and retail categories typically realize the greatest gains from Mother's Day promotions. Husbands and daughters make the bulk of all Mother's Day purchases, and consumers spend more on this holiday than most others, including Father's Day. The most popular service given as a Mother's Day gift is a half-day spa treatment. To promote your Mother's Day offerings this year, consider using e-mail as a low-cost, high-return tactic to promote everything from jewelry to flowers.

June through September
While not the big spending holiday Mother's Day has become, Father's Day on June 17 is still a terrific hook for small businesses looking for an early summer boost. Since women make the most purchases for fathers and husbands, create promotions that appeal to their desire for convenient, easy shopping and cost savings.

Summer officially begins on June 21, but long before that, the season can provide a wonderful hook for specials or promotions that tie in to warm-weather vacations and fun. Campground owners, for example, can ramp up marketing campaigns that target families with RVs looking for affordable vacations.

Since the Fourth of July is a major retail marketing holiday, smaller businesses may want to stay out of the fray and concentrate promotional dollars on less-crowded holidays. If you offer products related to back-to-school promotions, August is your month. And retailers should plan a marketing push for Labor Day sales on September 3.

October
Trick or treat! Halloween is more popular than ever, with many adults attending costume parties and even sales of pet costumes seeing a dramatic upswing. For small nonprofits and fundraising organizations, Halloween provides a wonderful marketing opportunity. You can create a haunted event, get other local businesses involved as sponsors or partners, and sell tickets in multiple locations.

Halloween is also a smart hook for businesses promoting child safety products and services. You can win media coverage, including newspaper and radio interviews, by producing a fact sheet with safety tips along with a pitch letter to send to targeted editors and journalists.

November through January
November 1 officially marks the start of the holiday selling season, so why not put a new spin on Thanksgiving promotions? Instead of focusing on holiday decorations or falling retail prices, make an effort to help others while enhancing your company's image in the process. You can sponsor meals for the homeless. Or you and your staff can engage in a visible community improvement project. Work to enlist other businesses in your area, and share your story with the local media to aid your cause. Then you can proceed with your company's traditional winter sales promotions with a strong PR lift and community goodwill. And retailers can keep the momentum rolling into January with New Year's Day sales, followed by special promotions tied to the chilly weather.

www.bizmanconsulting.com

How to Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data

Over time, Windows loses stability. If you keep a computer for more than two years, at some point you're going to have to bite the bullet and reinstall Windows from scratch. But contrary to popular belief, you won't have to reformat your hard drive (with one exception, discussed below). The bad stuff you need to get rid of is all in your Windows folder.

Before you begin, gather your Windows and application CD-ROMs. Back up your data files (just to be safe), and then clear two days off your calendar. If everything goes smoothly, you can reinstall Windows in a few hours. But you have to assume something will go wrong: You may not be able to find a necessary CD, or data won't be where you thought it was, or something will simply refuse to work.

There's a difference between a repair reinstall and a complete reinstall. Though a repair (also called a refresh) will let you keep your current settings, a complete reinstall will give you a truly fresh version of Windows. Repairs are fast and easy, but they don't fix anywhere near as many problems. The instructions below are for total reinstalls, except where noted.

Your Vendor's Restore CD

Most computers ship with a vendor-specific restore CD rather than with a Microsoft Windows CD-ROM. (If your PC came with a Microsoft Windows CD, or if you bought a retail copy of Windows, skip to the section for your version.)

Some restore CDs give you all the options of a full Microsoft Windows CD, but with better instructions and the convenience of having all the right hardware drivers. Others can do nothing except reformat your hard drive and restore it to the condition it was in when you bought the PC. (This case is the exception I mentioned above that requires a reformat.)

If your restore CD is reformat-only, back up your data files to a network or a removable medium before reinstalling Windows. If you use Windows 98 or Me, back up C:\My Documents, plus the folders inside C:\Windows discussed in the 98/Me section below. If you have Windows 2000 or XP, back up C:\Documents and Settings. Also back up any other folders in which you store your data files.

Windows 98 and ME CDs

These Windows versions keep some important data inside your soon-to-be-erased Windows folder, so you need to copy several of its subfolders to another location. Right-click My Computer and select Explore. Double-click the C: drive icon (in Me, you may then have to click View the entire contents of this drive). Right-click in the right pane and select New, Folder. Name the new folder oldstuff.

Go to the Windows folder (you might have to click View the entire contents of this folder), hold down Ctrl, and select the following subfolders: All Users, Application Data, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, Profiles, SendTo, and Start Menu. If you don't see them all, select View, Folder Options (Tools, Folder Options in Me), click the View tab, select Show all files, and click OK. (If you still don't see them all, don't worry about it.) Press Ctrl and drag the folders to C:\oldstuff (see FIGURE 1).

Restart Windows with a start-up disk in your floppy drive. (To make a start-up floppy, insert a disk, select Start, Settings, Control Panel, double-click Add/Remove Programs, click Startup Disk, Create Disk, and follow the prompts.) At the Startup Menu, select Start computer with CD-ROM support. While the drivers load, insert your Windows CD-ROM.

Unless you're doing a repair reinstall, type the command c:\windows\command\deltree /y c:\windows and press Enter. Deleting your old files could take time, but the /y switch suppresses confirmation prompts, so take a break.

When you're back at the A: prompt, type x:setup, where x is your CD drive letter (it's likely one letter past what it usually is in Windows, so if it's D: in Windows, it's probably E: here). Press Enter and follow the prompts.

Once you're back in Windows, reinstall your graphics card driver. If you have Windows set up for more than one user, you'll also have to re-create each account. Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, Users to do so. It's important that the user names match those in the old installation. If you're not sure, open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\oldstuff\profiles. There you'll find a folder for each registered user name (see FIGURE 2). Don't worry about passwords. Log off and log back on as each user. When you're done, log off and back on one more time, but instead of choosing a user name and a password, press Esc to enter Windows without being a specific user.

Select Start, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt (in Windows 98) or Start, Programs, Accessories, MS-DOS Prompt (in Windows Me). Type xcopy c:\oldstuff\*.* c:\windows /s /h /r /c and press Enter (if you want to know what the xcopy switches do, enter the command xcopy /?). When xcopy asks if it should overwrite a file, press a for All.

When xcopy is through, reboot and log on (as a particular user, if necessary). Open My Documents to make sure all your personal files are where they belong, including your Internet Explorer favorites and your custom Start menu shortcuts.

Now skip ahead to "Finishing the Job."

Windows 2000 and XP CDs

Boot your computer with your Windows CD-ROM inserted. When you get the 'Press any key to boot from CD' message, do so. (If you don't see that message before Windows starts, restart Windows, press the key you're prompted to enter for your PC Setup program, and change the boot order so your CD drive is first.)

At the 'Welcome to Setup' screen, press Enter. The R (repair) option takes you to the Recovery Module, which is useful if Windows won't boot, but it's no help with a reinstallation. Soon you'll be told that there's already a Windows installation on the computer. Press r for a repair reinstall or Esc to begin a complete, destructive one. For a complete restore, select your C: partition and press Enter. When you get the warning that says an operating system is on that partition, press c. When you are asked your partition preference, select Leave the current file system intact (no changes). When you're told that a Windows folder (or Winnt folder for Windows 2000) already exists, press l ('ell') to delete it and create a new one. Follow the series of prompts. When the installation program asks for your name, enter temp.

Once the installation is complete, your system will reboot into Windows, and you'll be logged on as user Temp. If the screen is difficult to read, reinstall your graphics card driver.

If you are reinstalling Windows XP, skip to "For Both Windows XP and 2000."

If you're reinstalling Windows 2000, log off as Temp and back on as Administrator. Now log off and on again, this time as Temp. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Documents and Settings. One of the subfolders will be named Administrator. Another will be named something like Administrator.computername.

Select Start, Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt. Type cd "\documents and settings" and press Enter. Then type xcopy administrator\*.* administrator.computername /s /h /r /c, replacing computername with the last part of that folder's name (after "Administrator.") in Documents and Settings. Now press Enter, and when you're asked about overwriting files or folders, press a for All.

If you have any users on the old installation besides Administrator, continue with the "For Both Windows XP and 2000" section. Otherwise, open Windows Explorer and make sure your data files are where they belong. Then go to Control Panel's Users and Passwords applet and delete the user Temp before skipping to "Finishing the Job."

For Both Windows XP and 2000

Reopen Windows Explorer. Select your C: drive (you may have to click Show the contents of this folder). Right-click in the right pane and select New, Folder. Name the new folder oldstuff. In the left pane, choose the Documents and Settings folder. It should have subfolders for each user from the previous install, plus one for Temp and a few others. Move the folders for your previous user names to oldstuff.

Select Start, Control Panel, User Accounts (Start, Settings, Control Panel, Users and Passwords in Windows 2000). Create an account for each user who was registered before the reinstall. Be sure to use the exact names. They are the same names as the folders you just moved to oldstuff (as shown in FIGURE 2). In Windows XP, at least one user must have administrator privileges.

Log off and back on as each user, before logging back on as Temp. Make sure that you select Log Off and not Switch User at Windows XP's Log Off dialog box (this isn't an issue in Win 2000).

Log on as Temp, select Start, Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt (in XP, Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt), type xcopy c:\oldstuff\*.* "c:\documents and settings" /s /h /r /c, and press Enter. Press a when asked if you want to overwrite a file. Log off Temp and log on to each restored account to make sure everyone's documents and data are where they belong. Log on as an administrator and run Control Panel's User Accounts applet again to remove the user Temp.

Finishing the Job

Now you've got Windows going, but not much else. You may have to reinstall your printer, sound card, and so on. Luckily, if a driver for the gadget came on your Windows or vendor restore CD, it was probably reinstalled automatically.

You'll have to reinstall your applications to reintroduce them to Windows. Some of their settings will not be changed by the reinstallation, but those that were stored in the Registry were wiped out.

Once your Internet connection is running again, browse to Windows Update and download all critical updates for your version (see FIGURE 3). Then visit the sites of your hardware vendors to update your drivers.

After the reinstall, some of your data may not show up where it should. Search for it in both your Application Data and oldstuff folders, and see if you can move it to the folder in which Windows or your apps are looking for it. If you find a folder called Identities with two subfolders whose names are long and indecipherable, try moving the contents of one to the other and see if your data reappears.

You've probably guessed that the final step is deleting the c:\oldstuff folder--and the Administrator folder in Windows 2000. Make this the very last step, however. Wait a couple of days, weeks, or even months until you're confident that all of your needed files are accessible.

Send your questions to answer@pcworld.com. We pay $50 for published items. Click here for more Answer Line columns. You'll find Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector's humorous writing at www.thelinkinspector.com.

More on Sudden Reboots

Reader Robert Mazzeo of Royersford, Pennsylvania, points out that the "Sudden Reboots" tip in my July column missed three common causes of sudden computer reboots. A bad power supply, a faulty video card or driver, and a failing RAM chip are often the source of these boots out of the blue. Also, if you follow the column's suggestion to use a can of compressed air to clean out your computer's insides, wait at least 2 hours before turning your system back on.

www.bizmanconsulting.com

Building the Paperless Office

Joe Kissell, Macworld

Sunday, October 14, 2007 12:00 PM PDT

Computers were supposed to make paperless offices possible, but most of us are surrounded by more pages than ever. It's possible to break free from paper's grip, however.

I've developed a system that has allowed me to eliminate all but a slim handful of papers from my formerly bulging filing cabinets. I scan my documents and convert them to PDF files that include both high-resolution images of the originals (for reference and later printing) and -- using optical character recognition (OCR) software -- digitized copies of document text (so I can search, select, or copy it).

As a result, I have more free space on my desk and in my file cabinets, and almost every piece of paper in my erstwhile files -- old tax forms, letters from my bank, and more, as well as new stuff that still comes in -- is now searchable, easy to back up, and accessible from just about anywhere.

Get the Right Hardware

The first key is a good scanner. Fujitsu's ScanSnap is my tool of choice (and the one for which I'll provide specific instructions below). It's speedy (it can scan up to 18 pages per minute), it can scan both sides of the page at once, it automatically detects page size and type (color or black and white), and it includes a copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard.

While the ScanSnap is my favorite, you can find less-expensive sheet-fed scanners. Just be sure the model you choose has an automatic document feeder, bundled OCR software, a USB 2.0 interface, and a high page-per-minute rating.

As for hard-drive space, don't worry: With the settings recommended below, expect scanned PDFs to occupy about 250KB per page (or side) for black-and-white documents, 500KB for color. In other words, you should be able to store up to 4,000 pages in 1GB of disk space.

Get the Right Software

You'll also need two pieces of software. First, your scanner should come with some basic software, including OS X drivers and an application that lets you configure resolution, color bit depth, file type, default folders, and other settings; if you don't have that, check the vendor's Web site.

You'll also need an application that can perform OCR on your scanned documents and then combine the text with the original image of the page in a PDF file. The best candidates are Acrobat 8 Professional Acrobat Standard (version 7 should work), DevonThink Pro Office Office (US$150), or ReadIris Pro 9.

Most of the free or less-expensive versions of these programs won't work. Adobe Reader won't work, and neither will DevonThink or DevonThink Pro (the less-expensive versions of DevonThink Pro Office). Bundled versions of ReadIris should be OK. Your scanner may have come with all the software you need; the ScanSnap, for example, includes a copy of Acrobat Standard, and many other scanners come with ReadIris Pro. If your scanner comes with driver software but not a suitable OCR program, I recommend DevonThink Pro Office. It produces fast, accurate OCR results, imports scanned files automatically with minimal configuration, and provides a convenient interface for storing and searching scanned PDFs. Because Adobe Acrobat is so common, I'll provide specific instructions for it below.

Configure the Software

You then need to tweak the software to get the best results. Again, consult your scanner's documentation to find out how to change these settings.

Resolution I've found that 300 dpi yields the best trade-off between quality and convenience. In ScanSnap Manager, go to the Scanning tab and choose Better (Faster) from the Image Quality pop-up menu to get 300-dpi scans.

File type Since documents ultimately end up as PDFs in this system, I save scans as PDFs from the outset. In ScanSnap Manager, go to the File Option tab and choose PDF (*.pdf) from the File Format pop-up menu. If PDF isn't available in your scanning software, choose TIFF.

File location Most scanning software lets you put scanned images wherever you want. I save them to a subfolder named Scans in my Pictures folder, so I can easily find scanned documents later. In ScanSnap Manager, go to the Save tab, click on the Browse button, locate the folder you want to use, and click on Choose.

Other settings Turn on automatic duplex scanning and color detection: In ScanSnap Manager, go to the Scanning tab, choose Auto Color Detection from the Color Mode pop-up menu and Duplex Scan (Double-Sided) from the Scanning Side pop-up menu. If you can, tell the software to remove blank pages from scans, adjust crooked images, and automatically rotate images that are upside down or in landscape mode. In ScanSnap Manager, go to the Scanning tab, click on Option, and select the Allow Automatic Blank Page Removal, Correct Skewed Character Strings Automatically, and Allow Automatic Image Rotation options.

Automate your scans

Next configure your scanning software so it will send scans directly to your OCR program, save the document with the new text layer, and close the file. Here's how to do that in Acrobat; you can follow similar procedures for whichever software you're using.

Start by configuring Acrobat's OCR settings. Open a PDF file and choose Document: Recognize Text Using OCR: Start. In the dialog box that appears, click on Edit, make sure English (US) is selected in the Primary OCR Language pop-up menu, and choose Searchable Image (Exact) from the PDF Output Style pop-up menu.

Next, set up an AppleScript Folder Action to automate the processing of new scans. You can download AppleScripts for Acrobat and ReadIris Pro from macworld .com/3048. (DevonThink Pro Office takes care of this process automatically. ScanSnap Manager can automatically open scanned files in any of these programs, but can't automate the rest of the process.)

Once you've downloaded the script you need, save it in /Library/ Scripts/Folder Action Scripts; I call mine OCR This. Control- or right-click on the folder you've designated to hold new scans and, from the contextual menu, choose Enable Folder Actions. Control- or right-click again and choose Attach A Folder Action. In the window that appears, navigate to your new AppleScript file, select it, and click on Choose.

Now try scanning a new document. If everything works correctly, Acrobat should open shortly after your scan finishes, recognize the text in the document, and close the document window when it's finished.

Set Up a Workflow

With the technology in place, you can start scanning. But if you have thousands of pages to digitize, you're looking at a long process. Before you begin, figure out a good strategy.

Narrow the field Consider culling documents you don't really need, rather than scanning everything blindly.

Play the name game Give each document a descriptive label as soon as possible, while the contents are still fresh in your memory.

Devise a filing system Make sure you know where you're going to store each document -- and move it there immediately after scanning.

Get rid of the paper After scanning your documents, decide which ones you need to shred, which you can recycle, and which you must keep safe (legal documents such as birth certificates and notarized contracts).

Don't overdo it If you've got zillions of papers, don't try to scan them all at once. Set a goal of, say, 50 sheets a day. Once you're caught up, get in the habit of regularly scanning and then disposing of (or filing) all new documents.

[Joe Kissell is the senior editor of TidBits and the author of Real World Mac Maintenance and Backups (Peachpit Press, 2006).]

www.bizmanconsulting.com

One thing we have to keep in the forefront of our minds as our business begins to grow is the power of customer service.  After all, we are all in the business of fixing problems.  Every client you have right now is your client because he or she had a problem and you fixed it, simply put.

Never thought of it that way, this fact is true, and the reason you are reading this right now is, there is something you want to do better, or want to begin doing so in essence you are looking for a solution as all your clients are, when they call you.  If we can remember this from the company level then we will look at customer complaints from a different perspective.

When a customer complains, about a service or product, he/she does not really care about your product or service, what they care about is the problem they were, having in the first place that is as of yet unresolved.  Your client has made a purchase from you, for you to fix there particular problem and your solution has come up short.  The only thing that the client is looking for is to have his original problem fixed.

Below is and example of customer service explained and how it has saved one client and created an onslaught of referrals from this client.

 Let us assume one of our clients calls in and begins to complain about how long it took our company to repair his pc.  He also tells us there is another company online that does remote support and they have a 24x7 30 sec response time.  In addition, it took us 1 hour to respond and 15 minutes for repair.  So what do we do, the product he purchased (DirectTek core) clearly states response time to calls are 2-4 hours and our (DirectTek pro) has a 30 second response time and repairs average 8 minutes. 

Clearly, our client has purchased the wrong product and what he is upset about is the solution we presented does not fit his needs.  The biggest mistake we could make at this point is putting the blame on the client. We could tell him that when we presented our solution to you, it was your company that chose the core product; furthermore, our response times are clearly indicated.

We would be right in telling him that but we would probably be with one less client.  Instead, we choose to use the opportunity as an up sell versus a loss of a client.  we would tell the client in this example, “Sir we are sorry we did not live up to your expectations, but we do have a product that is better suited to you needs and at this time we would like to offer you our DirectTek pro.  This solution will resolve your downtime issues and due to you being unsatisfied with our other product we will offer it to you at a 10% discount rate with one month free”.

 For us to do this our profit margin on that sale will be less then usual.  We also have to give him a month free (more loss) but remember the client has already purchased the first product(profit) now he purchases a second product (profit) and he will tell his colleagues about how great our company is, (word of mouth) all in all I think the customer service went a long way.

Good customer service does not have to be performed only in the face of problems though.  One of the most profitable forms of customer service comes in the form of cross selling.  Let’s use our insurance broker as an example.

One of our clients (Associated Management) implemented a cross sale, customer service plan here’s how it works.  They specialize in worker’s compensation they also carry automobile, fleet, and life insurance.  They implemented a customer service call center which would call there existing customer to make sure they were happy with there current insurance solutions.  They then began the up sell process of explaining to them the discount they would receive by converting there fleet, life and automobile insurance over to them.  As well as making it more convenient to the client by having to only, keep track of one company instead of dealing with multiple companies.  It lead to an 11.3% increase in revenue (recently implemented give us some time)

 Conclusion: Stay in the business of fixing problems and you will stand a better chance of staying in business. 

As always we at Voltage Pc hope you have found this article educational and would like you to become a subscriber to our blog.

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You Can Grow Your Small Business Using The Right Technology

Dan Katz of PSK Supermarkets, a Mount Vernon, N. Y. based chain of Foodtown grocery stores, knew he had a problem: His customers were making fewer trips to his stores and spending less money each time. Facing intense competition for customers from both traditional competitors and newcomers like FreshDirect and Whole Foods, he needed to increase customer loyalty fast. But how?

Dan started with his in-house point-of sale system. The system stores records of all purchases and ties the data back to the individual customer and the SKUs (shopkeeping units, or products) they buy. Using the shopping cards he issues to his customers, Dan created a targeted loyalty program focused on his best customers.

Here’s how it works: customers are divided into 12 loyalty levels, with 1 being the most loyal and 12the least loyal (measured in terms of dollars spent per month). The best customers are rewarded for their purchases with S&H Greenpoints which can be redeemed for merchandise. In the first six months of the program, Dan boosted the average purchase per visit more than 20%; a year later, Dan constantly monitors customers across the 12 loyalty levels. He offers incentives to retain his best customers and watches for “downward migration” if customers suddenly start shopping less so he can send out targeted promotions to bring them back into his stores.

PSK’s strategy is a dramatic example of how business is changing the way it interacts with and markets to customers and prospects. A few important trends make it easier than ever for any company, large or small, to catch this wave and reap tremendous rewards. Data storage costs are lower than ever, and Internet usage is widespread. Most importantly, there are now powerful software programs that can capture, track, manage and analyze customer data. Microsoft Office includes Excel, a spreadsheet program many small companies use to store data on their customers.

Users who upgrade to Microsoft Office Professional for a few hundred dollars more can take advantage of the power of Access, an expandable relational database that can store data on many thousands of customers. There is also software for rent available on the Web from SalesForce.com that can keep track of sales interactions with customers for less than $100 per month per user. In short, a variety of powerful, easy to use, customizable tools are available that can help companies store and capitalize on their customer data.

Any company now has the ability to track the behaviour of every customer and store enormous amounts of data on purchase history, transactions, demographics and interactions. The key to building revenue and profits, though, is to use that data to provide a more personalized, interactive and service-oriented customer experience. How can you get started right now to take advantage of these trends and keep up with your competitors?

Here’s one “big idea” you should come away with: Learn who your best customers are. You’ll maximize revenues and profits by paying attention to your most valuable customers and targeting your marketing and business development efforts toward satisfying their needs. Below are ideas for getting better acquainted with your clients.

Keep track of all your customers. You can start with a simple Excel spreadsheet, or move to a more sophisticated Access database. If you have a large number of customers and want to track transactions, interactions, purchase history, demographics and other data, you can move to an industrial-strength relationship database management system.

Use the Web to interact with and learn from your customers. Think of the Web as a two-way street to gather and transmit information — from your website, via e-mail or in a blog. Give customers a reason to register on your website (to receive a newsletter or take a quiz) so you can capture names, addresses and e-mail addresses. You can then use a program such as Constant Contact to send e-mail on a regular basis to customers. Another idea is allow customers to “chat” or instant message in real time with, for instance, a sales rep, during certain hours.

Calculate a monetary value for each of your customers and update it when additional purchases are made. This can be as simple as updating an Excel spreadsheet once a month with purchase data from your point-of-sale system. If you have it, update your customer history with data on your cost of goods sold, so that you can calculate a net profit per customer. Over time, you can get an idea of how much your best customers are spending with you and a sense of what the “customer lifetime value” is for each of them.

Keep track of how often your customers buy from you (frequency), when was the last time they purchased (recency), and how long they’ve been with you (longevity). Together with the monetary value you’ve calculated, these will help you refine your definition of “best customer” and allow you to concentrate on maximizing total value over the customer’s lifetime.

Ask your best customers how you can do better: If you ask, they’ll tell you. What new products or services can you develop? What changes can you make to your existing products or services to provide customers with a reason to stay with you and bring you more business? If you listen carefully, you’ll learn a lot about what it takes to keep and grow your best customers. One great resource for surveys is Zoomerang.com, which will conduct a survey and analyze the results for you. The company currently offers a small scale study for free.

Tailor your services and products directly to your customers’ expressed needs. Use the customer intelligence you gather to change the way you do business. Focus on the specific products, services and ways of doing business that matter most to your customers. For instance, say your survey showed that customers felt your product was too expensive. Perhaps you c