Follow These 5 Tips to Acquire New Customers

Acquiring customers is often times the hardest part for a new business. In competitive industries, it may seem near impossible. Having a pre-existing customer base will help, but you might be starting from scratch. To find their first customers, new business owners usually rely on salesmanship skills or innovation. We aren’t all top-notch salesman, and…

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3 Clever Ways to Attract New Clients

When running a business, repeat customers are one of your best assets. They provide a steady flow of income (most of the time), and they’re valued people you already have a history with. Though there’s the possibility that they will jump ship when something better comes their way, you can’t discount how big of a…

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5 Keys to Crossing the Chasm to Mainstream Customers

Every technical entrepreneur is an early adopter of technology, so naturally they build things with people like themselves in mind. Unfortunately, for most solution markets, early adopters represent only 10 to 15 percent of the total opportunity, so it’s easy to get mislead on the real requirements of mainstream customers. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias.…

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How to Find Out What You’re Actually Spending on Customer Acquisition

Getting a new customer isn’t easy, but it can be done. Before you break out the bubbly to celebrate, however, you’ll want to know how much money you spent to actually get that new customer. Talk about a complicated undertaking! As an accountant and former CFO, I’ve gone through this exercise with clients and former employers, but tackling…

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The Best Way to Say No to Potential Clients

No: a two-letter word that is easy to spell, hard to say and even more challenging to accept. No one enjoys being at the receiving end of the word ‘no.’ It might lead to feelings of rejection, inferiority, resentment or self-pity. These are negative emotions that you don’t want people to associate with your brand…

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The Importance of Pipelines

I am the world’s worst salesman, therefore, I must make it easy for people to buy. ~F. W. Woolworth An entrepreneur had developed a product, and he was doing incredibly well. He was able to afford a great house and employ his entire family, all at very healthy salaries. His business was doing so well…

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Expand Sales by Going to Your Existing Customers First

“If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we’ll turn out all right.” ~Jeff Bezos So many business owners think they must reach for new customers if they want to expand sales. However, new customers require a lot of time and expense to acquire. A better…

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Win Fast, Lose Faster

Inevitably, as I do pipeline and deal reviews, I see sales people hanging onto too many bad deals. The deals are hopeless, the sales person may reluctantly admit it, but stubbornly wants to keep it in their active pipeline. These deals arise for all sorts of reasons, some good, but most bad. There are those…

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Why Excellent Customer Service is Essential to Startup Success

According to the book “Leading on the Edge of Chaos” by Emmett C. Murphy and Mark A. Murphy, 68% of customers leave a business because of bad customer service. That is an astonishing number when you consider that dissatisfaction with the product or service that the company provides accounts for only 14% percent. This means…

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How to Get New Customers by Targeting New Markets

Many entrepreneurs assume that everyone will love their solution as much as they do, so they tune their marketing focus based on their own needs and wants. That’s the right place to start, but real growth and scale requires attracting customers who are not like you. Expanding your market into these areas requires thinking outside…

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