Business | smallbizdream blog

Why Are Small Businesses Important to the Economy?

No matter where in the world you live, small businesses are the backbone of the economy. According to a 2017 statistics, 97.9 percent or around 1.15 million of the country’s businesses are in fact small businesses while only a mere 0.2 percent or less than 3,000 are considered big businesses.

With that in mind, what implications does a long, drawn-out lockdown have on the economy and why should governments spend every effort to spare millions of small businesses during these difficult times?

Small Businesses Create More Jobs than Big Businesses

Small businesses have a significant impact in terms of GDP and curbing unemployment rates among well-developed economies. They pool together skills, resources, and capital into creating something useful and worthwhile to the economy – jobs, income, quality goods and services – things which couldn’t be attained otherwise.

More and more people are attracted to the idea of running their own businesses because it promises greater opportunities and it enables them to work at their own pace without having to live off from paycheck to paycheck. It’s not uncommon to see former employees building an empire for themselves. Steve Jobs worked (no pun intended) as a game console technician for two years before rising as co-founder and CEO of Apple.

However, most people aren’t built for entrepreneurial roles or they don’t have the right mindset to begin with. Hence, the vast majority will actually end up working for a job instead of being at the helm of things. This takes us back to the 80-20 rule. As a business owner, you may well be among the 20 percent in the world who has other people in the 80 percent working for you (also known as Pareto principle).

Small Businesses Spark Innovations and Industry Leaders

As we gain more experience, we also get better at things like differentiation and avoiding market saturation. So we try different things. We find clever ways to stand out from the crowd. We make it a point to satisfy, or as Warren puts it, to delight our customers, whether it’s better products, top-notch service, frictionless transactions, online services, and so on.

Small businesses have the ability to change things at will – little by little, one small step at a time. These are the ones who eventually strike gold and become a dominant force in the market. Amazon started off as an online bookstore in a small garage in Washington. Furthermore, small businesses are much closer to home and thus better at getting feedback on how they might improve their product or service.

Compare this with big businesses where creativity and innovation is often hampered by office politics and excessive bureaucracy. It’s especially important for fast-changing industries such as tech, finance, consumer goods, and transportation.

Small businesses that rise to become household names add yet another benefit to the economy – the export of high-quality goods and services not previously available in the market. Yeti Coolers is a textbook case of a two-man business which morphed into a multimillion-dollar, publicly-traded company in as little as 6 years. Other notable examples include Uber and Airbnb.

Small Businesses Breeds Healthy Competition

There’s no getting away with competition. Pretty soon you’ll have to deal with other businesses when they start showing up at your doorstep. Over the years we’ve learned to adapt to these challenges by being better at certain aspects in our businesses and by standing out from the competition.

Competition might actually be good for business and the economy as a whole. Competition vastly improved our goods and services. New products and technologies continue to emerge. Businesses move faster, becoming more efficient than ever. Production goes into overdrive, providing customers with a myriad of options from budget to high-ticket items, feeding small businesses with a steady stream of cash, stimulating economic growth.

Competition would also mean consumers have less to worry about when it comes to monopoly and price-gouging. Antitrust laws ensure all businesses stay within the limits of fair competition and refrain from unethical practices such as undercutting the competition or by offering goods and services at cutthroat prices (forcing competing businesses to capitulate).

Interesting enough, small businesses can take on other businesses, even the big ones, if they just put more time working on their strengths. Unlike the big ones, small businesses are more agile. They can go mobile, implement one small change at a time, test out a new product or service or switch to a different strategy at a moment’s notice. In fact, you can implement some of them yourself by learning CRM and sales and marketing automation.

We’ve spent years and years perfecting our unique system after working with more than 700 clients and came up with our 5-step Rapid Sales Growth Blueprint designed especially for small business owners like you.

Small Businesses Keep Our Economy in Good Shape – and Why Our Governments Should Step in

Small businesses have been the engine that drives our economy for so many decades. They ushered the golden age of consumerism, providing people with quality goods and services and improving our way of life. We owe these a lot to the millions of small businesses who are now at risk of losing the battle against COVID-19.

As one of the major borrowers of capital, they’ve turned small towns into bustling cities, creating jobs and income for millions of people across the country. They stimulate people’s spending and provide our governments with additional revenue in the form of taxes. They help raise GDP and thus a stronger currency.

It doesn’t take an economist to see how the failure of small businesses may very well mean the failure of the whole economy. No income means small businesses will have to lay off most of their employees. The U.S. Bureau of Labour reported a record high of 3.238 million people filing for jobless claims, eclipsing the unemployment record of 695,000 in October of 1982.

People’s spending will reach an all-time low as the general populace is now strapped for cash. More businesses close. More people lose jobs. Less people spending, less income, more closures – it’s a downward spiral. But this won’t have to be the case if our governments would respond to the call with a sense of urgency by saving small businesses who have been hit hard by this malady.

Need Small Business Advice During COVID-19?

We want to reach out and talk with you through our FREE 45-minute business consultation where we can discuss some solutions to get you through the pandemic.

We lay out every possible means to keep you in business, whether it’s through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, email series, sales funnels, landing pages or business directories.

Can’t go to the office? Download SBD Sales and Marketing Automation App for your mobile and keep tabs on your business in the comfort of your homes.

Can A Business Coach Make You an Extra $50,000 a Month?

Business coaches are prized mainly for their business acumen. You can always count on them to give you sound third party advice when faced with tough decisions, something which can only be acquired after many years of building both successful and not-so-successful businesses. But that’s exactly why we turn to them.

A lot of business startups lack the knowledge and experience that a business coach can bring. Inexperienced business owners often come up with great business ideas, but have a difficult time executing them. This happens more often than not, even among well-established companies.

Every business owner makes bad business decisions. In fact, if they’re being honest, they’ll be the first ones to tell you to get a good business coach as early as possible so you won’t have to make the same mistakes.

Some of the world’s industry leaders who had business coaching include Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and former CEO of Google, Eric Schimdt. If these titans of industry find a business coach helps them make better business decisions, then what are you doing without one?

Your Business Coach Knows Where You’re Headed for

Seasoned business coaches almost have like a “sixth sense” when it comes to business. They can tell whether your idea will turn to gold or a failure waiting to happen. It’s not intuition, but a well-founded response based on experience, facts, trends, probabilities, customer psychology, among many other things.

Your initial conversation with your business coach is mostly about listening to you, taking in as much information as possible about you and your business. He or she will dissect your strategies, identify strengths, opportunities, and expose potential threats and vulnerabilities. He’ll ask some important questions and piece together crucial information to get the whole picture.

By then, he’ll be able to provide you with an accurate appraisal of your business. In most cases it can be one of two things – you’re on your way to the top or to the bottom. You’re either winning or losing to your competitors. Or, it could be you’re heading for a slowdown and you’ll have to look for better options such as downsizing or using automation. Sometimes it’s more about organizational matters such as dealing with your staff and employees.

Whatever it is, have an open mind and don’t let pride cloud your judgment. Remember, business coaches are more concerned with helping your business than trying to boost your ego.

Your Business Coach Provides Personalized Guidance

Books and online courses are great when it comes to learning the basics of starting and growing your own business. In fact, we have our own book, Small Business Profitability Secrets, which we highly recommend you get one. However, most books and online courses have limitations. They often deal with much broader issues common to all businesses and offer little help at solving specific problems for your specific kind of business.

Another problem is that these kinds of information tend to date rather quickly. Our markets and industries are dynamic, and technologies are changing at breakneck speed. What worked 3 to 5 years ago may no longer be as effective today and we need to adapt our strategies and our message to the here and now.

One of the best ways to get around this problem is to get personalized guidance from a business coach. Think of your business as your own body. When something goes wrong, your doctor will check on your medical history, allergies, and so on. You’ll go through several tests before your doctor writes his prescription, and follows up on you to see your progress.

Your business is unique in some ways. You can be a restaurant like a thousand others, but you have a different customer base, a different location, different competitors, demographics, economic conditions and so on. Your restaurant may not have the same set of standards as it is in Canada, Japan, Australia, or the Philippines. How do people learn about new businesses in your country? Do people search the internet or spend most of their time on Facebook or YouTube?

Your business coach will have to learn everything first about your business before taking a step further. This is very different from just looking for information over the web to get quick fixes or some vague, oversimplified solutions that doesn’t fit your business. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do your own research. There are thousands of valuable resources on the internet that provide great ideas for business, but ultimately, you need a business coach to help you in those crucial decision-making aspects of your business.

Having a Business Coach Could Be the Best Investment You’ll Ever Make

If you factor in the number of years it would take you to find the right mix and how much money you’d spend over the course of time playing “pin the tail on the donkey” with your business, and compare that with how much you’d spend for a good business coach, you’ll be amazed at how much you’re going to save in both time and money by having a business coach in your company.

Having a business coach cuts the amount of time and money spent learning everything on how to do your business right. It’s the same reason we hire coaches in sports, finance, or even self-improvement. It expedites the whole process, allowing you to reach your goals much sooner with the least amount of money and effort.

But more than that, we hire good coaches because we want to win in life – our businesses, careers, and our relationships with other people. Having a business coach is like standing on the shoulders of giants, enabling us to see further than we would otherwise see by ourselves.

So yes, definitely find a good business coach. What’s a good business coach? How does a small business profitability expert with over 20 years of experience and has helped launch more than 700 companies worldwide having a total turnover of $1.4 billion in revenue sounds to you?

Final Thoughts

By now, you might be thinking where to find a good business coach to help you grow your business like you’ve never thought possible. Would you be happy if we tell you we’re offering a 45-minute call where we connect you with our small business profitability experts at no cost to you?

We’ll identify all ways to increase your sales and profits and leave you with a step-by-step plan with details on how to implement and the tools you can use to accomplish each task. Visit us at Smallbizdream.com and take a closer look at our 5-step Rapid Sales Growth Blueprint today.

How to Use Content Marketing and Social Media to Grow an Audience

When it comes to brand awareness, nothing beats a well-thought-out, well-executed content marketing strategy. However, you don’t have to wait for people to come to you. What you need is a system that puts you right in front of your intended audience in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.

Content is king, no doubt. But with more than 500 million blogs and a new blog post published every 0.5 seconds, it’s almost impossible to build an audience on Google if you’re not among the few established companies and authority sites dealing on a certain topic. In fact, many businesses that rely heavily on website traffic took a beating after Google started implementing some major updates.

We’ve seen this coming a few years back, and we’ve perfected a system that helps small business owners grow their audience more rapidly without slugging it out with the ‘big guys.’ We’ve learned through experience, after working with over 700 clients, to combine different methods of customer engagement that allows them to attract the right people and keep them coming back.

Create a following on social media

Content marketers would often tell you to just create awesome content and let Google take care of the rest. However, things have changed and it’s no longer just putting out great content, but becoming pro-active in getting the right people to see your content.

1. Facebook & Twitter

No, we’re not selling to people on Facebook or Twitter. We’re here to make connections. Sure, you can buy some ads to give your post a temporary boost, but the main purpose is building that relationship and trust with people who might be a customer or a business partner.

Here’s a great thing about social media. You don’t have to be an ‘authority’ (or sound like one) to get an audience. You just have to use Facebook & Twitter the way they’re supposed to work but with a clear purpose in mind – to get more people into your business.

Show people what you do with your business, share some thoughts, some interesting articles or videos. Interact with users. Better yet, if you have your own blog or website, you can share your featured posts or repurpose old content for social media (e.g. quick tips, testimonials, etc.).

Ideally, you want to have a system already in place before going in on social media. People often make the mistake of going in and not being able to handle it right. So they end up either spending too much time doing everything by hand or sending bulk messages that are too generic to create meaningful connections.

Think of social media as your springboard. It helps you start a conversation but you’ll need to follow up on them and move to a more ‘stable’ platform like your email list as you go by.

We’ve developed our own sales and marketing automation which enables you to collect data and keep track of your conversations on social media. It’s a complete system that comes with a landing page builder, sales funnels, autoresponders and many others.

2. LinkedIn

We’ve devoted an entire blog article on this topic about how to use LinkedIn at networking events to increase sales. It’s the same idea with Facebook & Twitter, but we’re looking to find business partners, preferably those which are complementary to yours. Hence, if you’re a restaurant or catering business, you’ll probably want to partner up with event planners in your area.

We recommend having your own blog or website before looking out for potential business partners on LinkedIn. It creates a bit of impression. Like being able to write your own book, people tend to trust you more with your knowledge and experience when they see your blog or website.

Quality content still reigns supreme, but you need the right tools to get them to the right people – precisely what our system does for many small business owners like you.

3. YouTube

Videos will take center stage as technology improves and the majority of online marketers migrate to a much less competitive space. Unlike Google, YouTube is an untapped goldmine for a lot of content marketers. You don’t need a professional studio or expensive video editing software to get a thousand viewers on your channel.

Think of all the YouTube videos you’ve watched with more than ten thousand viewers and subscribers, using nothing more than an inexpensive camera, a whiteboard, or just them talking to you through their smartphones. Even if you’re a little bit “camera-shy,” you can still build a massive following using whiteboard animation software like VideoScribe and Doodly or even a slideshow made from Pixabay images with your voiceover.

Now here’s the best part. Your audience will get notified each time you have a new post by simply clicking on that bell notification icon. And, unlike a static post or webpage, your YouTube videos will continue to get more viewers, comments, and more people will subscribe to your channel long after you’ve published your videos.

Just like your Facebook and other social media platforms you’ll be able to use your YouTube content to get them to your site and keep them coming back for more.

Collect data for your sales and marketing automation

All your content marketing efforts and social media posts should all come down to this – collecting data for your sales and marketing automation. This is where most small businesses hit a dead end. They don’t know what to do with next, or they don’t have a system to capture all the data and use them to turn followers and subscribers into buying customers.

Small Business Dream offers a solution to take your fans and followers into that journey, whether it’s through sales funnels, landing pages, newsletters, drip mail, email series, and push notifications. We’ve covered every possible way to keep them interested after doing all the work of creating great content for your business.

Conclusion

Content marketing doesn’t require a lot of resources aside from your time and creativity. Like any other skill set, you’ll get better with practice and gaining more experience. However, not all business owners have the time and commitment to produce high-quality content. We offer services which includes online and offline solutions to drive your message home.

If you need help, you can reach us and take advantage of our FREE Sales and Profitability consultation where we identify key aspects in your business to rapidly boost your sales. Come visit us at www.smallbizdream.com to learn more about our 5-step system to rapidly grow your sales and profits with less stress.

How to Prepare Your Small Business for Google BERT

Google has stirred up the online community after rolling out its newest update, BERT or Bidirectional Encoder Representation for Transformers. Local businesses, particularly those who have invested in building an online presence, are asking whether or not this would affect their bottom line.

While it’s too early to tell whether this update will impact the online visibility of many local small businesses, we can already see the direction Google is taking and be able to solidify our online presence using online and real-world marketing strategies.

Think Users, Not Algorithms

Google has had several updates to improve user experience, but this by far is impervious to traditional search analysis. It’s hard to tell which metrics will have an impact on current rankings. BERT AI tries to make sense of how users search and interact on a given information and responds accordingly.

Before, people must learn to use the search engine in a way that would be easier for the algorithm. This time, it’s the other way around. People can search the way they want to and it will try to give the best results based on user intent and context instead of the actual word or phrase. Local businesses with websites don’t need to spend a lot of time and resources for the highest ranked topics and key phrases and just focus on creating useful content.

Normally, it will take months or years to rank organically. We offer a faster way to get more people to your site with our Rapid Sales Growth Blueprint. We help businesses grow an audience by combining the best of both worlds (online and offline marketing) which is far more effective than using one method only.

Become an Expert in Your Field

Users look up to Google for answers. Think of one reason why users should come to you instead of going to other sites. Precisely. They come to you because you’re being regarded as an expert in the field. Small business owners offer something valuable to people whether it’s a specific product or service, useful content, or expert advice.

You need to educate your audience, answer specific queries, clarify issues regarding your product or service, and put your years of experience into creating powerful, insightful content across different medium whether it’s a blog, an e-book, or YouTube content. People want to know you’re the ‘real deal’ when it comes to a specific type of information.

The question many people have is how would people know about you unless you rank in Google? The answer is you don’t have to. You can achieve the same level of success more rapidly with a multi-faceted approach to promoting your small business and not have to wait on Google to put your business in front of users. We’ve designed a 5-step system in our Rapid Sales Blueprint which allows you to do just that.

Grow Your Audience Online through Multiple Channels

Multi-channel marketing is becoming more popular these days as business owners brace for the possible repercussions Google might have on their online presence. One way to minimize its impact is to have as many avenues of customer engagement as possible — email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, live calls, push messages, meeting up face to face, and so on.

You don’t need a thousand page views per month to start seeing gains. What really matters is you’re able to get to your intended market and start converting in as little time as possible. Internet marketers who specialize in rapid growth rely on a multiple-channel approach in growing an audience.

They’ve also come up with some interesting ideas like “content sprouting” in which a YouTube video becomes an audio podcast, a blog post, an Instagram Story post, and so on. This enables them to connect with their audience on as many channels as possible with less effort.

Small Business Dream has always been about rapid growth using many different methods to increase your sales whether it’s through sales funnels, email outreach, social media, and now with its latest addition of a mobile networking app (virtual business card) and business finder app.

Meet with Real People

Find opportunities to link up with potential customers and business partners in your area. Have your introduction ready and be prepared for a short talk about your business. We have a blog post about getting the most out of networking events to guide you from choosing the right networking events to go to, attires, things to bring with you, among other things.

Get exposure to people in your community. We recommend having your site up and running before the event, your landing page and sales funnels set up, and our free Small Business Dream Button app as your virtual business card. This way you won’t miss out an opportunity to get more people into your site. Set up a referral system and get people to download Small Business Dream Business Finder app, and watch your traffic grow over time.

As you can see, you don’t have to always rely on search rankings to get more people into your site. You just need the right strategy and the right tools to get the job done.

Conclusion

Have you been thinking on a business idea but aren’t quite sure what to do or how to move things forward? We invite you to share some time with us. Tell us about your small business. We offer FREE Sales and Profitability consultation where we find the best possible solutions and outcomes for your type of business. Come visit us at www.smallbizdream.com to learn more about our 5-step system to rapidly grow your sales and profits with less stress.

Best Follow-up Tips for Small Businesses

Today is the topic that everybody knows they should do but nobody’s doing—follow-up. Most people fail in follow-up—restaurants, accountants. Heck, even my barber fails in follow-up.

So what exactly is a follow-up? Follow-up is a multiple-channel approach. In some studies, getting a customer takes a minimum of seven touches, while others say it’s around fifteen. But it’s going to take a whole bunch of reaching out to get a person from not interested, to engaging with you.

Most Businesses Don’t Follow-up Enough

Most people are able to do one or two follow-ups, and that’s where about 90% of businesses stop. You followed up but they didn’t answer your phone call. They’re not ready yet. They give you some excuse because they were too busy and didn’t really want to talk to you, so you never call them back. Or maybe you call them back one more time and you get their voicemail and you say to yourself, “That’s it. He must not be interested…he must hate me…he must not like me…he must know it’s me and they’re not responding…I must have done something wrong.”

All of our doubts come in because it’s easier to stop following up and make excuses. You’ve probably made these excuses yourself. I’ve done it many times, but I’ve also not made the mistake and had wonderful surprises. I had, for instance, found out that the guy had just gone on holidays and turned off the cellphone for three weeks, and he’s so happy that I called because now he’s ready.

Why Some Follow-ups Don’t Work

When it comes to follow-ups, one of the first things that a lot of business people think of is automation. They assume automation could do all the follow-ups for them, that they can just dump them into an email series and let it follow up them forever. “Oh, and I can make it HTML-formatted, and I can have banners and pictures and videos in all of my emails, ’cause that’ll make it better.”

Unfortunately, most people these days read their emails on their phone. Imagine you’re traveling in, say, the United States. You’re roaming, and somebody sends you an email. You opened it, and it starts to auto-play a video that’s sucking the life out of your roaming rates of your data package. You won’t be so happy, would you? Always be mindful of what you’re sending out in follow-ups.

What Makes a Good Follow-up?

1. Multiple touch. This is key when doing follow-ups. Multiple touch means if you’re phoning, make sure you have a system to remind you when to phone next and what you said last time. In amongst your phone calls, there should be some kind of an automated or semi-automated email going out or some LinkedIn reaching out going on.

2. Value-added. You really want to try to figure out a way to have ‘value-added’ follow-up. It’s not as simple as calling them up, asking if they’re ready to buy yet. You want to feed them helpful information. The 80/20 rule still applies in follow-ups. Eighty percent needs to be just good old-fashioned information—valuable, helpful stuff. Twenty percent can be your sales pitch. You don’t want an overt sales pitch. Writing a big long email that’s actually an underhanded ‘trying-to-be-a-sales-pitch-without-being-a-sales-pitch’ won’t work because your customers see right through that and would disengage.

Follow Up on Multiple ‘Touch Points’

Email nowadays takes about three and a half days on average to be opened and read. So again, it’s best to get some kind of a system. We recommend Small Business Dream, or some kind of follow-up system that’s going to deal with your automated emails, semi-automated emails, LinkedIn reach out, phone calls, and so on.

Whether you’re a fully digital company or not, phone calls is very much a part of business. Picking up the phone and talking to somebody is still one of your best ways to connect. It also helps move things forward. Have a system that lets you know who you need to call today and why, and what you said last time.

Have a proper contact manager working for you, one that’s connected to being able to send emails easily. Add them to a LinkedIn series or an SMS series, or in our case, we have the ability for clients to put an app on their customers’ phones and send push notifications directly to those people.

You really want to work on your follow-up, and follow up enough. Typically, 7 to 15 touches is the magic number. That means a phone call and an email, and then maybe another phone call and then a text message, and so on. You’ll never know which ones they’d prefer connecting to, so spread it around the medium. You need to divert your systems to only working that way but stay keeping in touch.

Build an Email Strategy

Tip #1: Create an email list

Everyone should have an email list. If you don’t have an email list, you’re losing probably one of the biggest pieces of gold. I don’t care what business you’re in. Collect an email list, whether it’s a free newsletter that’s going to give them tips and tricks on the stuff that you know about, or just a, “Hey, jump on our mailing list so that we can send you periodic updates about what we’re up to.” You want to cultivate that mailing list.

Tip #2: Semi-automate your messages

There are ways to automate text messages nowadays. The more effective method is doing a personalized text message. Automation works best if it goes undetected. Best way to do it is to not be completely automated. You can have a message that has the bulk of what you want to say and just put that one sentence that’s personalized. “Hi (insert name), it was so great seeing the other day at (insert place or event).” Once you have that mailing list, you really need to start using it, and use it differently whether it’s an existing customer or a prospect that might be a customer.

Tip #3: Connect often

Probably the number one mistake people make with their mailing lists of prospects is they don’t email often enough. “Oh, if I email them more than once a month, they’ll get angry and remove themselves.” This actually happens when you’re sending them content they don’t want. But if you’re giving them good value, they are more likely to stay.

Tip #4: Give them value each time

If I knocked on your door at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and you opened the door and I handed you $100, would you be happy that you saw me? If the next day at 3 o’clock I knocked on your door and hand you $100, would you be happy? What would happen on the next day? You’d probably be standing by your door at 3 o’clock hoping that I would knock on the door because I’m giving you value every time.

Now what if I knocked on your door at 3 o’clock, and again at 5 o’clock with a hundred-dollar bill, would you open the door? You’d probably say to me, “Can you just come by like every five minutes? I got a couple of friends that are with me. You can knock on their doors too.” If you’re giving them value, they will open up that ‘door’ (your email) every time. If you’re not giving the value, they’ll unsubscribe.

Even if they’re not opening your email every time, they will create a nice neat little folder where all of your stuff gets dumped into, and when they’re ready to go and see what kind of good stuff you were sending, then they’ll go look. So, it’s important to be sending emails often enough with value.

Create Good Value for Less

If you’re thinking value is hard, you don’t have to have 395 pieces of value-generated content. You just start recycling it with different headlines. So now, when you send it over and over for the guy who did watch it twice or three times, and he still hasn’t bought yet, nothing is lost. He hasn’t bought anything anyway. But what about the guy that finally read that third time because the headline got him to open it, sees that information for the first time, and decides to engage with you?

We find the same thing on our previous blog on LinkedIn system. It’s not the first time we send them a message. Not the second time. It’s like two weeks, three weeks, a month later when they finally go, “Oh, you know what? I haven’t been on LinkedIn for the last two weeks. I just got your message.” And they know you mean business because you’re different than all the other people that click the ‘connect with me’ on LinkedIn button and never talk to them again.

Plain Text vs. HTML-Formatted Emails

We briefly talked about a nicely fully formatted HTML email versus not. As we said earlier, most people have their pictures turned off. They’ll not see your pictures and they don’t enable that on a download when they open up your email. Besides, when was the last time you’ve ever opened up a perfectly formatted HTML email that wasn’t trying to sell you something?

What’s really funny is you have a lot of software packages out there—emailing automation software packages—and in order to create value for you knowing that you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ve come to them to buy software to do it for you, and knowing that you’re most likely the person who thinks, “If I make it all graphically and pretty and corporate people will love it,” you’re likely to be very excited that you found a tool that you have a million templates in.

But when you actually a/b test emails and you send out fully HTML formatted with lots of graphics and all that kind of stuff, since most people are looking around a phone, it’s really hard to make it look good. And, again, you’re eating up their data.

But in the end, it doesn’t work because it’s an obvious app. Where if it’s a really quick, “Hey, I was just running out the door…” and you make a spelling error and, “I really just wanted to connect with you because I found this really cool article about bluefish,” and I know you’re the guy that loves bluefish, all of a sudden you’re going to get an engagement. You’re going to create a relationship over that, and that actually had nothing to do with what you sell.

Maybe it had a PS line, but probably not. If it has a PS line it needs to look like your iPhone had a PS line. So, fully formatted doesn’t usually work. Simple, to the point, well-written, copywritten emails with the right word balances, and a message that feels good for the person receiving it, gives them help is a lot better. You may, however, send one every ten emails that’s HTML-formatted.

Examples of Follow-ups and Key Takeaways for your Small Business

1. Carpet Store

We did a follow-up series for a carpet store—one at three months, one at six months and one in a year. It took us ten minutes to write, cost us zero dollars to add to the system, and it would go out fully automatic. He was reluctant because he thought that if somebody doesn’t buy carpet when they come into a carpet store and they don’t buy it within the month, they’ve already gone somewhere else. They’re not going to buy from him.

Our argument was, with Vancouver’s real estate and the cost of housing, building permits take forever to get. So, to legitimately do a complete reno that might be a whole house-full of carpet, you might be six months before you get the permit to allow you to even install the carpet. Long story short, after implementing this within a very short period of time, somebody got the 3-month email, their permits came just in for a $14,000 sale.

It’s typical in the carpet industry to have commission somewhere between 8-10%. It was a pretty significant amount of money for just putting in a little email. And I have to say, that steak and lobster that I received as a ‘thank you’ for pushing him to make that email is one of the finest in Vancouver.

2. Software Business

In our MLM software business, we have email follow-up of prospects. The record is set at about eleven years before someone was finally ready. We didn’t even send enough emails. Nothing for months at a time. Eventually, we only sent them an annual follow-up. We didn’t know back then that I could pester them every single day and it’ll just be ignored until they’re ready, or they’ll remove themselves.

But who cares? It makes no difference because they’re not a customer. But when you’re the only person following up, they knew the customer service would be there as well. (Same thing happened in the carpet store. Even though the carpet may not have been the cheapest, but the follow-up was there. The customer service was there at the beginning.)

You’re setting precedents that you care enough. The Small Business Dream system sends out a ‘Happy Birthday’ card, a ‘Merry Christmas’ card, and it used to send out anniversary cards (we stopped sending anniversary cards because people sometimes get into marital strife or divorce and we’re inadvertently picking at the scab). We are now doing LinkedIn’s method of anniversary and consider anniversary to be their work anniversary, or the anniversary of when you first signed up to our newsletter.

All of these were just things that made somebody, after 11 year goes, “You know what? You send me a birthday card every year and you’re so amazing.”

3. Real Estate

I bought eight rental properties, which turned out cash flow positive—all from separate real estate agents. Why? I have a rule as a salesperson and as a student of loving selling. I don’t want to do business with someone who doesn’t follow up. When they did follow up, they were following up with comparables in the area or some very obvious super-canned RE/MAX or Century 21 system that they’re connected to, and it wasn’t personal. It didn’t teach me anything, and they weren’t like, “Hey Dennis, how’s the rental property working out for you? Did you find tenants?” Nothing…just gone. So, I would buy the next one from the next guy, hoping he’d follow up. Not one had followed up after the sale, or if they had, they’d followed up in a way that was completely disengaging.

One of the things we teach in the book, the Small Business Profitability Secrets is how to be a better realtor and how to frame your words your customer likes. Real estate agents need to make that point to their clients. The problem is their clients have no idea what the difference is, nor do they care to hear the explanation.

We came up with a different way of follow-up that helps realtors like crazy—it becomes a home maintenance tip list. It’s a free thing that everyone can sign up to. It sends them out in the summertime and what summer home maintenance things you can be doing. Just before winter it tells you, “Hey, maybe you should get your furnace checked,” or maybe, “You should get your air conditioner checked…you should get your carpets cleaned two years after you bought your house.” It just gives a bunch of stuff that makes everybody excited to get your next email because it’s going to remind them about something to keep their house in tip-top shape.

So that means they stay engaged for seven years. Not only they stay engaged, but they refer their friends to your amazing house tip. Now you’ve got people telling people about you, and you’re in their face all the time once a month, twice a month. You’re in their face with things that are beneficial to them. Who do you think they’re going to call when they hear someone saying, “I need to find a real estate agent broker”? They’re going to find the persons that was following up.

Final Thoughts

Most people make a big mistake of stopping their follow up when they make the sale. They think, “That’s it…sale’s done…I don’t need to follow up.” You need to continue if they’re on your initial prospecting list, offering things and constantly educating them. If, for instance, they turned into a product-specific customer, obviously that one would stop once they purchased it, unless it’s something that can be repurchased.

It really depends what it was after the sale. Is it a re-purchasable item and you need to remind them every month to get it again, or is it something that you buy once every seven years? If so, then you better find a way to keep them interested in you for seven years for when they’re ready to buy again.

You need to have the ability, once the sale is made, to decide, “Are you sending them into training for that product? Are you just continuing with the general newsletter that gives lots of value and promotes every new thing you have to them every now and then when it’s there?” It really depends. But there’s no question about you needing to follow up on them after the sale was made. Follow up is critical to business. Talk to sales and marketing automation expert about how you can make sure you follow up after the sale because that’s actually where the gold is. Getting them the first time is very expensive. You better keep selling to them. Check us out at smallbizdream.com where you can learn more about our Small Business Sales Blueprint.