Business Advice and Top Tips – Easy To Use!

Frequently Asked Questions

Business advice and top tips that are easy to use – FAQs are a great opportunity to answer all the unspoken queries a prospect may have. Everything and anything they may want to know before engaging with us.  All too often people use FAQ’s to focus on the boring, mundane stuff.  Whereas we should use to show why deal with us. What makes us different. How we handle things if they don’t go well, etc.

One example was from an online suit company. They had a FAQ basically saying what happens if I don’t like the suit when I see it?  Their answer was this has only happened twice – and that was it!  Most strange to pose their own question and then not answer it. Daft really.

Some good examples pose and answer relevant questions. Such as ‘Aren’t all businesses like yours the same?’. ‘Why shouldn’t I go for simply the cheapest?’ The best small business advice is to dare to be different.  Be bold in your questions and of course answers too!

A great book is ‘They ask – you answer’ by Marcus Sheridan. His message is to answer every possible question a prospect wants to know. You become the expert and the ‘go-to person’ in your field. Give unbiased genuine advice and become trusted as a result. All makes perfect sense and a great read: They Ask You Answer Book

Just Features Makes Poor Marketing

The underlying principle is prospects research you before engaging, using Google in particular.  A recent mailing sent by a large firm of estate agents is a good case study.

They had posted a letter and leaflet enquiring if I was interested in selling my house. A general speculative marketing ploy, and nothing inherently wrong with it.  However not much right with it either.

Their leaflet was out of date by 4 YEARS!  We know that because a simple Google search tells you the company was sold in 2014. It is no longer part of the national chain it claims to be.  Stupid decision to use old printed material merely because you don’t want to waste it.  Prospects aren’t daft. Top small business tip and advice – never ever assume prospects (or customers) won’t do their own research before engaging. Therefore make sure what you are saying is accurate and relevant.

Benefits Matter

The letter claimed to have two cash buyers simply referred to as Mr A and Mr F.  They are looking for properties in the area and are prepared to move quickly.  How could this potentially important selling point be made stronger?  They should have given a lot more information regarding these buyers. Make them believable and paint a picture of their circumstances.  Why they are moving. Their professions even.  Anything to make them seem genuine.

In addition, being able to move quickly is double edged. It means I would have to move quickly too!  What everybody wants is a quick exchange of contracts. They could have addressed how a long floating completion date was possible. Plus offer to help me find somewhere to live as well.

Sell the benefits every time.  Easy to do, just add the three words ‘…which means that…’after every feature.

There is space on their letter to do this. They had failed to use even 20% of the available space.  They could have used this and incurred no extra postage costs!

Reasons Why

One of the key business boosters we use within the BGC, is ‘Reasons Why’.  Put simply, using the estate agents example, what do we want to know if thinking of selling our house using their services?  Things like how many homes did they sell last year? What percentage of the asking price was achieved? How many viewings before an offer was made? On average, how long was a property on the market before an offer was received? All factual stuff to demonstrate their expertise and get me to trust their advice.

They also had no Google reviews on their website. Social Proof is hugely important, especially in such a competitive market.  The front page of Google showed a recent article about them looking at going into administration.  Not exactly confidence inspiring stuff.

It is easy of course to criticise others. The trick is to look at our own offerings – are we as guilty?  What do our prospects want to know? Are we 100% sure we are giving them the answers?

Podcasts

The Business Growth Club podcasts continue to perform well.  Last week I was told by a member that a prospect had listened to their podcast and then got in touch.  This fits entirely with how prospects react nowadays – they do their research first.

We have a huge range of excellent podcasts, all entirely relevant to small businesses and packed full of small business advice. See them here: Knowledge Library

What Can The TSB Debacle Teach Us?

What is the net result of their IT meltdown? Believe it or not, over a quarter they lost 26,000 clients but gained 20,000. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know what thought process these people went through! Overall a net loss of only 6,000 customers.

The big question is why so low a figure? It isn’t because changing bank accounts is difficult, although appreciate it is a pain. It is actually very easy to change banks with a seven day process.  I think it is because we generally regard all banks as basically the same and trust very few of them.

There’s a very important message here for all of us involved in the B2B market. Especially if not in a well regarding sector.  It proves it takes a lot to get people to trust us. Therefore our message has to be bang on the money to stand a chance.  Otherwise, they will think why bother!

That’s why you should all be using the BGC modules, packed full of small business tips and advice designed entirely for businesses of our size.