Envisioning Success

Is Your Website an Effective Marketing Tool?

Posted by Chris Shockley under General, Marketing, Usability, Web Design

Everyone has a website these days. We’ve all been to the same marketing seminar that says you need one.

That’s a good start, but don’t stop there. Your website can be one of the most effective marketing tools you have. It is by far one of the best values as well.

In the past, if you wanted to do business you’d get a yellow pages ad, for thousands of dollars, and then you took out ads in the paper also, maybe canvasing and area with fliers or something. You knew you had to spend the money because that is how you were found. You put it in the budget and organized your business around it.

But for some reason people approach things without the same business commitment. People seem to think that spending as little as possible is somehow going to achieve a satisfactory result. Read more…

Build Customer Loyalty-Utilizing Your Website – Part I

Posted by Chris Shockley under General, Marketing, Web Design

Many of you reading this have a website for your business already. It may even be a pretty nice site, matching your company branding (so important, seriously). Professional looking, clean and easy to use.

Job done, right?

Maybe.

Your website is one of the most powerful marketing/selling  tools you own. For the money there is no better way to accomplish the task(s) you set for it. Once in place, it never sleeps, takes a break or complains. It performs the task perfectly every time, never day-dreaming about being out on the open road. Read more…

Envision Your Success

Posted by Chris Shockley under General

Without sounding too touchy feely, and those who know me know that I am not into that semi-spiritualized business/self help philosophy kind of thing, one thing I want to encourage you to do is to think about the new year and imagine yourself more successful.

Envision it.

What does it look like? Do you have a new car, another machine that does whatever it is you need? A bigger warehouse? Read more…

Listen for What Your Customer REALLY Needs

Posted by Chris Shockley under General

If you’ve been working with people for any length of time you know that sometimes they can have a tough time explaining what they want and sometimes what they tell you they want is really not the best option for them. They tell you they want “X”, but based upon what they are doing, in the back of your mind, you know that “Y” is a better solution.

I believe that as a business with integrity, one should bring that up to the customer, explain why what they’re asking for may not be the best solution and offer them the better option in your opinion. Read more…

Don’t Overwhelm Your Customers

Posted by Chris Shockley under General

If you’ve been around a while, you’ll remember interactions with customers where you gave them all the information they could possibly “need” and yet they walked away. How could THAT happen, I gave them every detail, every possible angle was covered, no one else could have given them better information.

So, what happened?

Well, chances are you never explained why the information was important (if it even truly was) in a way that the customer could really latch onto it, or you just overwhelmed them with so much that you kind of killed off their ability to process it.

You are excited about your business, you love the technical stuff and know why it matters; you customer does not care. Read more…