Customer service is not just an abstract concept that business professionals like to throw at you.  It is a tried and true way for you to keep your customers returning.  If you follow these 6 general rules, you can significantly improve customer service in your work at home business and keep those clients coming back for more.

Customer Service Rule #1:  Keep your bad day locked away.  Everyone has those days where the world can do no right.  However, your mood has no place in your conversations with clients.  Force yourself to put on a pleasant demeanor with clients.

Customer Service Rule #2:  Return your phone calls.  Most customers will call you once, especially if they have never had any other contact with your company.  If you do not call that person back, you have lost a potential client.  Since you have a work at home business, it is likely the phone will be your primary point of contact, so be sure to call clients back.

Customer Service Rule #3:  Ask before you put the customer on hold.  No one likes to be put on hold, and no matter how great your on hold music or messages may be, you should always ask before you put a client on hold.  It is just a common courtesy.  Also, if you have call waiting, try to minimize how much you use it.

Customer Service Rule #4:  Use general courtesies often.  Remember to say “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome,” often.  Many clients respond to these common courtesies.

Customer Service Rule #5:  Avoid using too much jargon when talking to clients.  Not every client that calls you understands “industry speak,” and it is rude to think that they do.  Make sure you speak in terms anyone can understand until you know that the client has a good grasp of industry jargon. 

Customer Service Rule #6:  Do not have side conversations while you are on the phone with the client.  This means setting rules with the others in your household, so that you are not interrupted while on the phone with one of your clients.  If a customer feels ignored, your work at home business might be ignored by the client.

Read the rest of the article here: Customer Service in Your Work at Home Business.

Download the Free Work at Home Manual (Free $97 Value!) and receive valuable tips, strategies and techniques designed to grow a very successful Home Based Business.

Copyright © Charles Fuchs is an established Six Figure Income earner and one of the top online marketer’s. He specializes in showing people the Best Work at Home and Home Based Business on the internet.

I grant permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

At first glance, nothing seems more chaotic than a trade show floor. Jaded buyers rush by, hell bent on seeing the people on “their list”, while the newcomers seem a little bewildered by it all. The noise from the crowd rises and falls in a steady drone while flashing lights and other cheap tricks add to the confusion. But in this apparent disorder, a simple truth exists. The tradeshow floor is alive, full of energy and momentum. It’s energy flows and eddies around us and best of all, it’s possible to manipulate it for our benefit.

Today’s tradeshow attendees have a hidden agenda. Actually, it’s not so much hidden as “pre-determined”. Budget cutbacks in the travel sector and the consolidation of retailers means that fewer buyers are covering more ground in less time. They still visit the tradeshows, but the way they visit has changed. They pre-plan their agendas and pack as much as they can into a single day.

By all means do your homework to get on their “A” list - send out “pre-show” packages letting them know where you will be, have your sales force try to set specific appointments, and take advantage of the venue’s service to contact them on your behalf. But failing your Herculean pre-show efforts, what can you do to draw people into your booth? Gimmicks don’t work. Sex no longer sells! But in the ever changing world of the tradeshow, the answer could be the oldest cliché of them all, an “ancient Chinese secret”. Secrets from the “science” of Feng Shui could turn your booth into a magnet for positive energy and potential sales.

Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese study of the environment, both natural and man-made, that has been practiced for thousands of years. Using elements such as lighting and color, Feng Shui masters used their knowledge as a tool to ensure the well-being of the Imperial Dynasties. No longer a closely guarded secret, Feng Shui theory focuses on methods to manage the flow of energy and when used properly, can “guide’ people into your booth.

One aspect of Feng Shui involves dealing with barriers that inhibit the natural flow on energy. That being said, the first step in designing your “energy friendly” booth is to create an open atmosphere. Eliminate any physical and psychological barriers by making your booth open and inviting. Push the furniture to the back and sides to create space for attendees to come into your booth and you’ve taken a big step towards being “irresistible”.

It should come as no surprise that lighting is a key element of the art of Feng Shui. Like moths are drawn to flame, the human eye is attracted to bright light and any booth that is well lit will attract attention. Lighting can also be effective in dealing with the stagnant energy that pools in dark corners - a strategically positioned flood light is an excellent way to deal with these energy drains.

Light that floods downward will help energy flow throughout your booth. In contrast, under-lighting creates an eerie “flashlight held under the face” effect and can make attendees feel ill-at-ease. Avoid this potential pitfall at all costs. Another thing to consider is the actual shape of the light and its base. In making your selection, look for rounded edges - an angular shape will reflect the light in a straight line, effectively “dissecting” your space and anyone standing in its path.

Skillful application of the space and lighting strategies will definitely increase your visibility but that’s only one part of the equation. Once you’ve mastered lighting, it’s time to turn your focus to color. But to unlock those secrets, you’ll have to read the next article in our series.

Patty Stripes is an editor for The Trade Show Booth, an online resource where she has posted various articles about improving your trade show booth performance and getting creative with trade show displays.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Were you aware that Blog is now an official word in the dictionary?  Do you even know what a Blog is?  If you have a work at home business, you ought to learn.  Blogging is an effective and inexpensive way to promote your work at home business.  It is simple and can yield good results.

If you haven’t seen the multitudes of blogs on the Internet and you have no idea what this strange word is about, a blog is a web page made up of posts arranged in chronological order.  It is similar to having a journal or weblog on the internet. They range from personal blogs in which people post journal-like entries or opinions to business blogs which are what you would consider for your work at home business.  Blogging for your work at home business can actually be quite a useful tool.

Blogging software has become simplified for even the beginner user.  It allows you to avoid the pitfalls of having to learn HTML, and instead does it for you.  Sites that offer blogs usually have low cost or free blogs, which offer your home based business the ability to be present on the internet for little to no cost.  You will not have to hire some website designer to come in and create an entire website or wait for them to update your site when you have new information.  Blogging becomes your web advertising tool for your work at home business.

The best thing about blogging for your work at home business is that you are also able to offer others the benefit of your expertise.  If you are a consultant or information-based work at home business, you can bring consumers to you as they look for know-how on the internet.  Each post can be a tip or lesson to help clients and entice customers to use your services.  Not a writer?  Hire a blog writer for a small fee to post for you.

Still not sure?  Try looking at some different blogs on the internet to see if blogging for  your work at home business is something you want to consider.  Great free blogging sites like LiveJournal or Blogspot offer free blogs.  You can even use your blog to earn extra revenue through advertising programs like Google AdSense and partnering with other companies. 

Read the rest of the article here: Blogging for Your Work at Home Business.

Download the Free Work at Home Manual (Free $97 Value!) and receive valuable tips, strategies and techniques designed to grow a very successful Home Based Business.

Copyright © Charles Fuchs is an established Six Figure Income earner and one of the top online marketer’s. He specializes in showing people the Best Work at Home and Home Based Business on the internet.

I grant permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Feng Shui is the Ancient Chinese practice of configuring home or work environments to promote health, happiness, and prosperity. By utilizing elements such as light and color, Feng Shui Masters used their skill to promote the flow of “chi”, or vital energy , to protect and enhance the prosperity of the Imperial Dynasties. Widely practiced today, Feng Shui theory focuses on methods to manage the flow of energy and with skillful application, can effectively lead people into your booth.

Johnny Cash had his all-black attire, Christo had the saffron-draped “gates” in Central Park. Were they embracing Feng Shui color principles? Perhaps not consciously, but both men instinctively knew the incredible impact that color has on our mood and our perceptions. Retailers and marketing professionals embrace color as one of their most effective tools. Psychologists have suggested that color impression can account for 60% of the acceptance or rejection of a product or service. Clearly, color is an important “weapon” in the Feng Shui arsenal. Master this key element of Feng Shui theory, and you’ll have people flooding into your booth.

Color can both soothe and stimulate and the two reactions are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible to excite your customer mentally while keeping him still enough physically to listen to you! A high energy presentation can be an effective tool, but it’s not to your benefit if your customer is too jazzed to pay attention to your sales pitch. Balance plays a big part in any Feng Shui application, and this is especially true when it comes to color.

Strong yang (masculine energy) colors such as red, orange, yellow or gold can be used to stimulate energy. Bright, rich color both pleases our eyes and excites our brains while yin (feminine energy) colors like green and blue promote a feeling of well-being. A combination of yin and yang hues is the most desirable but limit your predominant colors to three or less. Signage is an effective way of combining the two - try using light, yin-colored letters on a dark, yang-colored background. The contrast will make the lettering appear larger and viewers will find it easier to read.

If you are attempting to breathe new life into an existing trade show booth, nothing yields more bang for the buck than a fresh coat of paint. Even if you opt to stick with the same color scheme, a fresh coat without marks or nicks is more reflective and conducive to energy flow. If you do decide to go with a new color scheme, make sure it enhances the mood you want to set. Use red and yellow to evoke excitement and optimism and black to convey authority. Green and blue, colors found in nature are soothing and serene.

Careful consideration of color theory will go a long way towards conveying your message, even if (God forbid!) no one is in your booth. Combine this with the lighting strategies discussed in our other article and you’ll be well on your way to a successful show. But there are still a few tricks up the ancient masters’ sleeves - and the next article in our series will demystify them.

Patty Stripes is an editor for The Trade Show Booth, an online resource where she has posted various articles about improving your trade show booth performance and getting creative with trade show displays.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Article explores different avenues of promoting online business.

In order for any online business to succeed, you have to get your website before the web public. I would like to share with you some different avenues of getting your website into the cyberspace marketplace through different advertising methods.

1. E-mail is commonly used to advertise on the internet. But the big problem with e-mail advertising is spamming rules and regulations. To overcome this, you must always only send e-mail advertising to opt-in subscribers. You can do this by providing something free on your website that the consumer would give up their e-mail address in order to get the free offer. You then capture the e-mail address as an opt-in subscriber. You can also purchase opt-in leads through many different opt-in subscriber providers. Be sure to check out your lead company before purchasing, and make sure they are targeted to your specific online business. Lead companies are not always equal in the quality of leads they provide.
You also must provide an opt-out footer in your e-mail marketing campaigns. This enables the e-mail recipients to take themselves off your mailing list when they no longer wish to receive your e-mail. You also need an autoresponder to handle large mailing lists for your advertising campaigns. The autoresponder handles e-mail campaigns, and will send out your messages automatically to your e-mail lists by whatever interval you set to send them. Just load and set it up to do the work for you. Autoresponders are timesaving marketing tools for your online business.

2. Advertising with solo ad ezines is a great marketing tool. Your ad is placed by itself, that is, no other ads are included with your advertisement. There are several good advertising ezines on the web you can place your solo ads with. Just make sure to choose “solo ads,” since most offer other types of ads as well. An agency with 100,000 subscribers is a great place to run your solo ad. Some even have special priced packages.

3. Post a blog and write your own articles. When you post your blog and publish your own articles there, with your website URL attached to the author section, you can get your website picked up by search engines looking for free new content. When they choose yours, your website address is then picked up by the search engine, giving you another opportunity to get your website exposed to patrons of the web. Be sure to ping to let the spiders know where you are! If you feel you can’t write, hire a ghostwriter. You still get the benefit of getting your website recognized by search engines. You can post your blog free! Submit them to different article publishing ezines to get them published on the web. Free advertising!

4. Do local advertising in newspapers. Make flyers and distribute them in your neighborhood, on local business posting boards, and on university or school bulletin boards. Every day, give out business cards to people you come into contact with. Tell your friends about your website, and tell them to tell their friends. Word of mouth is a very effective way to advertise with people who already trust you.

5. Place an ad with Google Adwords. If you can afford to run an ad with Google, I highly recommend this avenue of advertising. You only pay when your ad is clicked, and you bid on the price you want to pay. It would be wise to educate yourself before advertising with Google Adwords by purchasing an educational book on using Google Adwords. What you don’t know can hurt your advertising budget.

By advertising through different avenues, you will build momentum, and with momentum, you build success. Online business success in not a race, it is a journey. Choose your online business wisely by choosing one with great leadership and support, and ongoing educational tools. Choose one with different streams of residual income, so you don’t have to depend solely upon one avenue of income. With residual income, you don’t have to do all the selling, just build a great team of sponsored members to help build your online business. With very consistent marketing strategies, a good reputable company to work with, and good educational tools, if you build it, they will come!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of positioning objects in conjunction with the movement of “chi’, or natural energy, through our environments. Chinese philosophy purports that every object is capable having an effect, either positive or negative, on the energy inherent in all things as it flows and pools around us. Strategic use of Feng Shui elements like light and color of can do a great deal to contribute to our trade show success. But in today’s competitive environment, it’s necessary to pull out all the stops. Don’t worry, we won’t ask you to trot out a “dog and pony” show. Our approach is a little more subtle than that - all you need is a little smoke, and a few mirrors.

Okay, we were kidding about the smoke, but not about the mirrors. Mirrors are exceptionally useful Feng Shui devices, especially in regards to manipulating the flow of energy. In addition to their reflective qualities which help brighten up your booth, they are capable of deflecting negative energy. Strategically positioned mirrors can also be used to reflect your product, and this is an effective way of “increasing” your display space. If you do opt to use mirrors, try to find ones that are slightly convex. This will distort the reflected image a bit, but it will disperse any negative energy in it’s path.

Plants, too, are an important tool of the Feng Shui masters. While you can’t exactly landscape your booth, you can still tap into the power of botanicals. Plants are used extensively in Feng Shui to keep negative energy out while letting positive energy filter in. Place plants around the entrances to lead good energy (and people) into your reception area. Use them to soften the linear edges of furniture or corners. In Feng Shui, “rounder is better” because it allows energy to flow while presenting minimal resistance. Choose plants with rounded leaves and make sure they’re planted in rounded strategically-colored pots.

Another widely-used Feng Shui implement is fruit! While the Feng Shui masters probably did not have the tired, poor, hungry masses at a tradeshow in mind when they studied its chi, fruit can serve a dual-purpose. Red apples or oranges, with their strong yang colors and rounded edges are excellent “bait”. Hungry people won’t be able to pass them by, and once inside “the matrix”, they won’t want to leave. Make sure you only have perfectly ripe, and perfectly fresh fruit on hand though. “Tired” fruit is an energy drain.

Finally, we turn our attention to the sense of smell. Even though our olfactory sense is our most powerful, it doesn’t really affect the flow of energy so there are no scent-driven Feng Shui cures. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t do something to evoke every possible sensation in our efforts to draw people to us. Traditional aromatherapy is designed to be therapeutic, but we have a more devious approach. Seed your reception area with a big plate of cookies or brownies and put a few drops of vanilla on a light bulb and the hungry masses that we mentioned earlier will come pouring in.

Patty Stripes is an editor for The Trade Show Booth, an online resource where she has posted various articles about improving your trade show booth performance and getting creative with trade show displays.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

A motivational and inspirational article for new online business owners.

As a relatively new comer to internet commerce, I have indeed learned a great deal about doing business online. I wanted to take a few minutes to share them with you.

First, it’s not as easy as I perceived it would be. I thought it would be simple! Well, I have learned that without my mentor and trainer, I would not have had any idea what to do. So, if you are thinking about starting an online business, it would be wise to choose one with a really good training program, and proven leadership.

Then, I have heard a lot of negative comments in forums about online businesses and how often someone fails. I have chosen to listen only to the positive comments and make my business a success. You have to make the choice, keep on going or give up!

Giving up is easy, but failure is not. I chose to start my own online business because I wanted to succeed. I refuse to believe I am going to fail! Anything worth any time and money spent is worth perseverance.

Of course, it helps when you have chosen the right business for you, and a program that has great educational tools at your disposal. You have to believe in your product, or you have failed from the beginning. So, check out your options, and choose wisely. If your choose a business you believe in, and you believe in yourself, anything is possible. Hang in there, and don’t give up!

Then there is the expense! Well, I look at the expenses as an investment in my future. I have learned in my lifetime, what you can expect for nothing is, guess what? Nothing! So if you enter into an online business not prepared to invest time, effort and money, what you will get is nothing. However, some expenses can be minimal, if you have chosen wisely and have great leadership to teach you the tools of the trade. You will, however, have to invest some time and effort.

So, to sum up my experiences so far, perseverance, leadership, educational value, and something you really believe in are key in choosing your online business endeavor. Choose wisely, and keep on keeping on until you reach your goals. Great success can be found by any of us if we choose correctly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The fight for your customer’s attention at a tradeshow has never been so intense. Budget cutbacks in the travel sector means that buyers spend less time than ever at shows. To make the most of their time, they pre-plan their agendas and do their best to stick to them. The rules of the game are forever changed.

Since so many buyers are on a tight schedule - frequently, they’re only at the show for a day - they’re no longer there to window shop or go bargain hunting. The good news is that they’re there to “buy” - the bad news is that if you’re not on their A-list, you may not get the chance to pitch them. But a well-designed tradeshow booth can change their minds - with the right presentation, you can make sure they “see” you, whether they planned to or not.

Think Outside the Booth
When designing your booth it’s important to think about the impression you make from a distance. Focus on distance viewing first, keeping in mind that at an actual tradeshow, there will lots of distractions between your potential customer and your display. Make sure your lettering is big enough to read from a distance and place it the upper half of your display that people standing in front of the booth won’t block it! Pay special attention to lighting and color as these two features contribute significantly to the overall image you convey.

What’s Your Sign?
Nothing is more important than your signage and there are several key elements you should to incorporate it into your design. First, your sign’s lettering must be distinguishable from its surroundings. Make sure your text is large enough to be read from a distance and place it over a plain background - a textured background can add interest, but it interferes with readability. It’s not a good tradeoff.

If space is an issue and you don’t have room for lettering as large as you’d like, use light-colored letters against a dark background. The contrast will make the lettering appear larger and viewers will find it easier to read. Adding a border helps focus attention and helps the viewer read it faster.

Use an accent color to present the information you want your customer to retain. Studies show that the use of a second color for key words increases the reader’s retention of that information by a whopping 78%. That’s a huge advantage in your fight to catch the buyer’s eye.

What’s your story?
Storyboards have always been an effective tool for conveying the most information in the least amount of time. The tradeshow version of this depicts 10 to 15 photographs of people using your product or service. This is an incredibly powerful way of conveying your message, even if your booth is unattended. The photos give your product a credibility that mere words wouldn’t and ideally, will prompt anyone looking at them to seek out a salesperson to find out more. When selecting the photos to use, be cognizant of the message you want to convey and choose wisely - the average viewing time of the entire wall will be around two minutes.

As with anything, a little preparation goes a long way, and this is especially true when it comes to trade shows. But a little “sleight of hand” never hurts either. Take advantage of the tricks of the trade to convey your message, and you’ll be well on your way to a stand out show.

Patty Stripes is an editor for The Trade Show Booth, an online resource where she has posted various articles about improving your trade show booth performance and getting creative with trade show displays.

Source: http://www.365articles.com