Perhaps you have seen the Matco or Snap-On Tool Guys out there peddling their tools to local mechanics in your community. Indeed they have to be good at sales, but more importantly they must be good at customer service too. They have to work with their customers and they must also be careful to get paid, as these independent business guys are generally independent contractors or franchisees and they are responsible for that outlay. Good customer service means more sales, referrals and getting paid first and that equates to their bottom line and most importantly their cash flow too.

How can you provide better customer service for a mobile tool business? Well, you can make sure that you show up every single week at the exact same time and if you are not going to make it you need to call and let everybody know or a week ahead of time let everybody know that you will be on vacation for one week.

Customer service also starts with a friendly smile and a great attitude with good displacement. The one-liner or joke of the day does not hurt either. Good customer service comes from asking questions and understanding the needs and desires of your customers and making sure you can fulfill those desires to the best of your ability with the products that your company has to offer. Please consider this in 2006.

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Everybody loves a bonus, a free prize. When we finished writing the 6 Secrets of Successful Advertising, we felt it needed just that - a little extra, like the temporary tattoo found in a box of kid’s cereal. Maybe even a whacky wall walker. You know, those little free prizes sell more cereal than anything else.

Our free prize is Jim and Travis’ Small Business Marketing Secret #6.5. Arguably, this little half-a-secret is more valuable than the other 6 secrets combined, and it’s certainly more enticing.

Haven’t you been curious about what in the world the half secret would be? This half secret is the glue that makes the others work together.

Your hooks will be sharper and catch more customers. Your message will spread more quickly and to more people. Your existing customers will be much more likely to buy from you again.

If you don’t believe us, try a little test and measuring. Test your ads without using this secret, then once again after you’ve put this extra horsepower into your business.

Traditionally, advertising only exists at the surface of an organization. The creativity and the attractiveness found in a company’s advertisements don’t permeate into the organization itself. Sometimes, sadly, the advertisement is outright false. We’ve all had an experience with false advertising.

Today, for advertising to truly make a difference in your company, you must truly exude the spirit of the advertisement from the inside out.

Indeed, a good ad is scendsational; a successful ad advertises a scendsational company. The distinction is one of communication vs. consumption. The single most important thing you can do to increase your business, whether or not you advertise, is to be scendsational.

Be scendsational at the core of your business: mission, vision, values, goals. Employee training, customer service policy, quality policy. Mediocrity is policy at many businesses today. Reject that and rise above. Submit to it and be average.

Offer a scendsational user experience: be the biggest, the fastest, the hottest, the ugliest. Be more expensive, easier to find, or funnier than your competition. Give your customers something worth laughing about or something worth crying about or something worth talking about.

Communicate scendsationally: say things they won’t expect, put your ad in unexpected places, make your ad the most outrageous one in the book, make your audience mad, excited, or motivated.

Scendsational advertising gets scendsational attention. When it’s done for a scendsational company, it gets scendsational results.

We appreciate you taking time to listen to our ideas. We have a genuine desire for you or your business to somehow benefit from the information we’ve presented. We love to hear your stories or suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to talk to us.

Be orange. Be scendsational. Be known.

Jim and Travis are the authors of “The Ten Tall Tales Of Traditional Advertising That Cost You Tons” and their newest release, “The Small Business Owner’s Guide To The Galaxy: Jim & Travis’s Super-Stellar, Out Of This World, Step-By-Step Guide To Generating Leads, Attracting Customers and Making Sales.” Get FREE small business marketing tips, shortcuts and secrets - RIGHT NOW - at http://www.GravitationalMarketing.com

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Longer letters, describing all the benefits of an offer, have been proven to be more effective in getting responses and, more importantly, sales.

But a number of pages with closely printed type is very discouraging for anyone to tackle. The layout and structure of your letter can invite your prospect to read - or stop them in their tracks.

Use these 13 layout techniques to make your letter irresistible to your reader.

1. Keep your sentences short. Use simple words that are easy to understand. Unless you are writing to people who speak the same technical language as you do, don’t use jargon. Think about how you would describe your offer if you were talking to your best friend. This is the language to use in your letter.

2. Inset the first line of your paragraphs. Although this is not the ‘modern’ style for letters it is actually better for your reader. Tabbed paragraphs make your page more aesthetically appealing and less daunting to read.

3. Use short paragraphs - 6 lines or less. Long paragraphs give a ‘solid’ appearance, which do not encourage your reader to tackle it. It is perceived as hard work and creates a barrier for your prospect. Aim to cover just one point in each paragraph.

4. Don’t finish a sentence or paragraph at the end of a page. You want your reader to continue onto the next page…a split sentence or hyphenated word entices them to turn over so they can finish the word or sentence. People rarely want to stop mid-sentence!

PLAIN IS BEST…

5. Don’t go overboard with fancy fonts or colours. If you are writing a letter to a friend or business colleague it’s unlikely you would add colours and different fonts to your message. This is no different. You are writing a letter to your prospect or customer. Adding too much colour and large, fancy fonts throughout your letter screams ‘sales brochure’ at the reader.

6. Use bullet points and indented paragraphs to make your points stand out. Don’t be tempted to use fancy symbols for your bullets; just a simple • will give the best effect.

7. The same applies to numbered lists, use straight forward numbering.

8. Make your letter as easy to read and attractive as possible. Use serif fonts for the main body text of your letter.

WHAT IS A SERIF FONT?

There are serif fonts and sans serif fonts. Serif fonts are those with a slight tail at the bottom of each letter. The ‘tail’ draws the eye to the next letter or word and creates a flow so there is less strain on the eye. It makes reading much easier.

Example serif fonts are:

* Times New Roman
* Century Schoolbook
* Courier (Old typewriter style)
* Georgia

WHAT IS A SANS SERIF FONT?

Sans serif fonts do not have the little tail. They are a harsher font and can, almost, stop the reader in his tracks. They are sometimes used in headlines or sub-headlines when you want to catch the reader’s eye. They can be used to pull the reader into the letter when they are glancing through the pages.

Be careful though, you could have the opposite effect if your prospect is already reading through your entire letter.

Example san serif fonts are:

* Arial
* Goudita Sans SF
* Impact
* MS Sans Serif

LINK YOUR PARAGRAPHS TO CREATE A ‘FLOW’

9. Link your paragraphs so your letter ‘flows’. These links are known as transitional phrases. They help the reader to make the ‘transition from paragraph to paragraph’.

Use links such as:

* ‘The thing is…‘
* ‘But that’s not all…’
* ‘Now - here is the most important part’
* ‘And in addition…’
* ‘Better yet…’
* ‘You will see for yourself why…’
* ‘Take advantage of this opportunity to…’
* ‘Now - for a limited time only -‘
* ‘Interestingly enough…’
* ‘To help you do this…’
* ‘What you do next…’
* ‘But first…’
* ‘The Result?’

KEEP IT PERSONAL…

10. Write your letter to a specific person. Have a picture in your mind of your ideal prospect or reader.

Start your letter with the person’s name; “Dear John” or “Dear Mrs Allen”.

When you’ve finished your letter, go through and replace the name of the person you’ve written to with someone else’s. Does the letter still work? If not, scratch it and start again.

11. Next, go through your letter and replace your company name, product or service with your competitors. Is the letter describing your competition perfectly? If so - you haven’t got a good working sales letter.

Your letter must have something that is unique or different; otherwise your prospect has no reason to buy from you rather than your competitor.

12. How does your letter read? In ‘The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of All Time’, Richard S Hudgson suggests the ‘hat test’:

“Put on your hat and go out of your office and find someone who doesn’t know your product or service. Ask him or her to read your letter aloud. Listen to the way he or she reads it and any questions they ask. You’ll soon discover if you’ve got it right. If he or she does ask questions - you need to add more information!”

SIGN YOUR LETTER PERSONALLY

13. Always, always, always sign your letter with a hand-written reflex-blue signature. Never use a computer generated ‘handwriting’ font and do not get someone to p.p. your letters.

Both of these give the recipient the impression he or she is not important enough for you to take the trouble.

Why reflex-blue? Reflex blue is the closest printed blue to the Royal Blue ink used in fountain pens. Tests have proved a blue signature does raise the response quite dramatically.

© 2004 Carol A E Bentley

Extracted from the book ‘I Want to Buy Your Product… Have You Sent Me a Letter Yet’ (How to create powerful sales letters, advertisements, flyers, brochures, web pages and newsletters that persuade hundreds, or even thousands, of additional customers and clients to buy from you!) by Carol A E Bentley (Rated 5-star on Amazon.co.uk)

Subscribe to your free reports, with no obligation, at
http://www.accelerateyoursales.co.uk or visit http://www.CarolBentley.com

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Customer Service at new and used auto dealerships is a must to increase repeat business and referrals. In post customer purchases those dealerships, which constantly rated higher in satisfaction, had the biggest growth rates and indeed always out sold the other dealerships which did not. In fact even metro car dealerships were beaten out by rural dealerships often enough and the ones that did always rated higher in customer Service.

It should be obvious to anyone in the auto motive industry that if you do not take care of your customers then someone else will and if you want customers for life then you ought to be thinking ahead as to how to make all your customers happy as clams.

What is good customer service at a car dealership? Well, when it comes to routine maintenance and service and or recalls for your car the service department should explain exactly what is going on, how long it will take and exactly how much it will cost to their best ability. If things change they should notify you and keep you apprised of the situation.

Good customer service also means having integrity; that is to say to me what you say you were going to do and doing it on time in a very professional manner. If you cannot do this you have no business being in the car dealership industry, as the industry is already filled with scoundrels. Please consider this in 2006.

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Firstly the packaging. Without doubt it is recognizable in most places in the world. The shape never really changes. The colour can immediately provide an indication of ripeness and for ll of you kinesthetics you may want to press it just to see how ripe it really is. Lets consider shape - again some would say it should be up for design award as example of nature’s packaging. As consumers it’s an easy fruit to open, no knives or anything else required. Once open the aroma is obvious as after all it is a banana. You may consider that because of it’s in built expiry indictor one glance and you know whether it is consumable or not suitable for purchase. Like other fruits it is biodegradable which for some is a further cachet. But wait lets think about the humble banana or indeed any other product no matter how enticing or interesting the packaging of the product, banana or otherwise, the question you should be asking is - how do you reach your potential customer/consumer?

Could your potential consumers/clients be turning away too soon because of crazy and preventable reasons. Retail is an interesting area to study and may have some of the answers. Face to face interactions, poor service at the retail front end or check out counter is enough to prevent consumers coming back and sometimes even completing the purchase? Today consumers are informed and have a multitude of choices. People like me are impatient and not understanding when it comes to service. The fact that I have walked out of recently because of This contributes to a negative brand experience and it seems to me that arrogant retailers should be the ones taken to task by brands - not the other way round! After all, without brands and the advertising that supports brand messages, consumers would not necessarily be shopping at their stores - remember we all have choices.

What About The Internet

With the advent of the internet so many of us thought that having a great website would be enough and soon we would be one of those internet millionaires. Unlike bananas the packaging only tells you one thing - like bananas it’s what’s inside that count. The number one issue for most companies is still driving prospects to their web sites or company. Take the test - are you getting several calls per day about your product or services? How are your leads being generated? But there is so much more you have to consider with corporate branding so my message is make sure that your brand awareness matters. Make sure that people know who and what you stand for and why they should buy from you. Make sure they understand what your brand stands for. Lastly make sure that you treat them with respect otherwise they will leave you and find something else - there will always be people wanting to rip the rug out from under your feet however with a little ingenuity and hard work your brand will become instantly recognizable.

So life could now be a peach or a banana.

© The Sales Academy 2005.

You may include this article in your ezine or on your website or distribute it to others, provided you include the copyright statement and the bio information tag line found at the end of this article.

Mike Palman, is an International Master Sales Coach, provides sales consulting and author of many sales & marketing related articles. Mike helps people and businesses do more, do it better and get the results that they want. Mike has had a successful career in sales and sales management for over 25 years and now helps salespeople and organisations get the sales edge. Since starting The Sales Academy in 2000 Mike and his team have helped 1000’s of sales people and companies globally achieve outstanding results. For more information about Mike and The Sales Academy visit http://www.thesalesacademy.com or for a managed Email marketing service please visit http://www.candomail.com

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