Dangers to Human Virtue

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness

What Makes Customers Tick?

Faced with a long-term client that wasn’t buying our latest ideas, we were a little tired of redoing the same ad for 15 years, a cohort got this bright idea, let’s do some research. Bingo.

A pricey research report was out of the question. But we had a telephone.

With a list of 150 customers, we developed a list of questions and made calls. Our findings weren’t earth shattering, but they were helpful in developing a truly client centered message. The process brought us, the client and the customer closer together. Now we had a page to work on, a target to reach.

Often due to lack of funds and time, those of us in small business neglect market research. Post purchase surveys are fine, but have a low response rate. On-line surveys have a lower response rate. Being pleasant callers, we had an almost 100% response from our randomly selected sample.

The knowledge gained by this do-it-yourself project has convinced me that at least twice a year, every business should conduct a real person telephone survey of customer satisfaction and purchase reasoning. Even a small sample will help to refine your marketing and business models immeasurably. The more senior the callers, the better the information is going to be,; because a partner can ask follow up questions that a lower level employee might not think of. Also, try to find a way to reach a sampling of people who didn’t purchase the product, say those who called for a consult and didn’t convert, because they offer good insights as well.

It’s not expensive market research, but it works.

Want to know what makes your customer tick? Just ask.

Howard Henson & Associates, Inc.

Marketing - Grapic Design - Web Design - Printing - Laminating

Larry Henson, President In Business Since 1974 405-471-4888

Evaluate Your Management Style

What is your first step in motivating others? Take a look at your own attitude. That's right -- your energy and perspective have tremendous impact on the people around you. Employees will pick up on your emotional cues whether you want them to or not. If you are cynical and pessimistic, you can expect the same from your employees. If you are optimistic and positive, the your entire organization can benefit from the effect this has on everyone.

Indeed the phrase, "Don't worry, be happy" takes on a whole new meaning in your management style.

Wasting time

clipped from www.athomeonpurpose.com Time Killers Where does the day go? Keep a journal of your daily activities and the amount of time devoted to each for one full week. At the end of that period, you will learn valuable information about where your precious time is being spent. Time is your most valuable commodity because once gone there is no getting any of it back — ever. It is arguably more valuable than money because you can hopefully always make more money. If I know I need to spent a large block of time writing e-mails I schedule it on my agenda and absolutely do not give in to the temptation to work on it at any other time during the week. One thing I discovered before I switched to this system is that if I am “just checking” e-mail at a time when I really have other things to do it actually takes longer to process all my messages because I’m so pulled into reading mail that I’m not always processing the information quickly