Customer Rentention by Romancing the Sale

Customer retention is the name of the game if you are a small business owner. But in order to retain your customers, you have to find them, attract them, build a relationship with them, convert them into a customer and THEN keep them!

This can seem like an almost impossible list of achievements if you are a new business owner. If your home business is already established, you know that you never quite escape that sense of overwhelm - it just takes on a new focus.

Instead of spending your time trying to attract customers to your business, you are now trying to stay attrative to the ones you have.

In other words, you are trying to keep the Romance alive!

Romancing the Sale: How to Build and Maintain Highly Profitable Customer Relationships That Last is an ebook designed to help you conduct your business in a way that is comfortable for both you and your customers. By thinking of the sales process in terms of a search for your life partner; you will automatically begin treating your customers in ways that speak to them not at them.

Avoid uncomfortable situations where you feel like you are being pushy.

No more fear of rejection.

The chances of out and out rejection are greatly reduced because Romancing the Sale is customer focused - you will be providing a valuable service even when there is not a sale -- yet!

Even when there is a break up - and a customer does not buy or is not happy; you won't be left wondering if you somehow failed. Instead, you'll be able to learn what you can take away from the experience, and recognize when a customer would be best served by someone else.

Romancing the Sale gives you step by step actions to take to grow your business - whatever kind of business it may be, at whatever point you are in your expansion.

It can be used as a training manual for new employees, or new team members.

How we treat our customers from the beginning and over time is critical to business success. But it's not so much how WE think we treat our customers -- as it is how the customer feels they have been treated.

Just as in a romantic relationship - there can be misunderstandings. One partner can feel neglected while the other partner feels they have been giving extra attention.

I washed a pink sweater the other week with my husband's work shirts. I intended to help him out by having his things ready for his business trip. When all the shirts came out covered with pink fuzz, I don't think he was overly impressed with my effort. It didn't matter so much that I meant to help - the reality was it took both of us to "defuzz" all those shirts before he could pack!

As a business owner, your intent is always to serve your customers and to serve them well. But that doesn't mean your customer sees the value in what you are providing.

Romancing the Sale is a handbook to guide you through the process with action steps to take so that your customer romance blooms. Find tips on how to keep both your customer attraction and customer retention rate high.

Want a sneak peak as to what's covered?

Table of Contents

Forward

Introduction

Chapter 1: Knowing What You Want and How to Get It page 12

Attracting the Right Bachelor(ette) for your Business

Bachelor #3: What Kind of Person Do You Want to Attract?

Where Do You Find Your Eligible Bachelor(ette)?

So What? What Your Customer Really Wants to Know

Find Your Life Partner by Speaking Straight to the Heart

Let’s Go Cruising!

Be Yourself – No Apologies

Action Step: Create Your Customer Biography

Chapter 2: Making a Good First Impression page 26

Preparing for the First Meeting

Taking Care of Yourself Inside and Out

Setting the Mood: Creating the Optimal Work Environment

Time Productivity Formula -- ABCD

Becoming Attractive

Action Step: Your Schedule Layout

Chapter 3: The First “Date” page 35

Dealing With Rejection

Focused Listening Makes You Irresistible

What if I Turn Her Off and Make Her Mad?

Feeling the Connection

Ask Questions and Clarify the Answers

It’s Not What I Say, It’s What I Mean

What Do I Do With the Information I Receive?

I’m Afraid I’ll Look Stupid

Getting Past the used Car Salesman Stereotype

Action Step: Be a Survey Monkey

Chapter 4: The Second “Date” page 52

But You Never Call! The Telephone Can Be Your Friend…Really!

How to Ask for a Second Date

When You Get a “Yes”

How to Know Her Mood Even Over the Phone

Positive Verbal Cues to Look For

Using Scripts for Your Phone Call

Remember the Purpose of the Second Date

Show Off Your Best Stuff

Give Appropriate Gifts

Action Step: Your 8 Second Pitch

Chapter 5 – The Courtship page 66

So When Do You Introduce Your Opportunity?

You Are a Great Catch!

Making the Commitment

No “Mail Order Brides”

Popping the Question – What’s Your Pitch?

Timing is Everything – When the Answer is “No”

Personal Growth – You Count Too!

Action Step: Create Your Own Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Chapter 6 – Keeping the Romance Alive page 81

How to Nurture Your Relationship

Teach Your Team the Art of Romance

Recipe for Success -- Staying in Touch

How Do You Hang Around Without Becoming a Pest?

Use a Greeting Card Campaign

How to Touch Base Through Your Newsletter

Action Step: Cook Up Your Follow Up Recipe

Chapter 7 – Love Letters to Your Customer page 90

OPW: The Only Person in the World

How to Get Your Emails (aka Love Letters) Opened

How to Set up your Autoresponder as a Love Letter Campaign

Strut Your Stuff –- The Right Way

Action Step: Create Your First Ten Newsletters

Chapter 8 – Breaking Up Is Hard to Do page 99

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

Analysis Paralysis

When Do You Fire a Client?

The Soft Takeaway

Giving a Second Chance

Wanting the One You Lost

Action Step: Practice Sandwiching

Chapter 9 – Meet Your Customer page 109

This section includes interviews with "people on the street" and how they feel about sales pitches - what turns them off and what causes them to buy. What brings them back?

Chapter 10 – Having a Lion for Lunch page 118

Overcoming obstacles

Resources page 123

Let Romancing the Sale help you with customer retention and customer satisfaction.  This is an ebook so you will have immediate access when you purchase.  Then let me know what your resuls!

Cindy Manoske interview with Barbara Silva

Here is the interview Cindy Manoske conducted with me for Romancing the Sale.

Cindy Manoske Interview with Barbara Silva

Writing an eBook: Romancing the Sale

Writing an eBook was the furthest thing from my mind when I began my home business eighteen months ago!  And yet, today, Romancing the Sale: How to Build and Maintain Highly Profitable Customer Relationships that Last is not only launched, but has its own affiliate program!

When I work with my clients, many of them shudder to think of the work involved when it comes to creating an ebook.  I would probably not have considered it this early in my career had it not been for Eben Pagan's Guru Master Mind which addressed many of the questions I had about how the heck one does such a thing!

Of course, it starts with finding a need. 

If you are in tune with your clients, colleagues, and business contacts, you probably won't have to look very far.  In my case, I was heavily involved with a community discovering the art of attraction marketing.  Everyone was at about the same level when it came to learning how to use the internet to attract prospects to our various businesses.  For the first time, we were not having to chase other people down to make sales or get recruits.

But just as the way to attract the prospects was new to us, the way to interact with those prospects once attracted had changed as well.  We were all being well trained in the attraction marketing process. But now there was a need for information on how to build and maintain the customer relationships we were attracting!

Step One to Creating an Ebook - Find the Need

So, step one in creating an information product is to start listening to the buzz around your business circles. 

• Go on the social sites like Facebook, BetterNetworker, SiteBuildIt forums, etc. and find out what problems keep coming up. 
• Put a survey on your blog or website asking for feedback. Surveymonkey.com is a free survey tool you can use to do this.
• Send a message to your email list asking for their questions.  Always keep a log of responses you get from your emails anyway, for future projects.
• If appropriate, go out on the street and interview people.  When I wanted to know how customers really felt about being approached by salespeople at Starbucks, I went to Starbucks and asked the people I found there.  They were very happy to share their true opinions and the result was a very powerful video marketing piece on what your customers really think. 

Is there a new health product on the market people are wondering about?  Are you active in a nonprofit group benefiting a school of church? Maybe there's a need for ideas on creative fundraisers. What about ideas for business owners reviewing the best tools for marketing or simply short reviews of best selling business books - that's a valuable time saver, believe me.  The list of examples could go on forever. The point is the best, most on target ideas will come from the actual people you are trying to serve.

Writing an eBook Too Much? Consider Offering a Free Report

If the subject matter is not one that's going to create a 100 page or more book, no worries.  You can write 7 to 15 information packed pages and offer it as a free report.  When your readers opt-in to claim their free ebook, they leave their email address and you build your list.  Email them only when you have something they will find to be of value, and you will be well on your way to developing a loyal customer base. 

Step Two: Creating an EBook

The next step is to research.  Obviously, you want to verify "the facts."  Don't quote a statistic in your book unless you can verify the source.

But just as important, you want to verify that you are getting to the core of the need you think is there.  To do this, again, go to the people.  Ask friends you have made on the social sites if you can interview them.  Or, promote your ebook by putting an article on your blog as I did, and ask for feedback in exchange for a free copy of the finished product. 

When interviewing your subjects, you want to record their words verbatim as much as possible.  This will help you in writing your sales copy as well as the book itself.  The way to make your reader feel you have gotten inside their mind is to use their language! 

getting into your reader's "head"One of my interview subjects told me he would rather "volunteer to clean out the toilets" than have to make a phone call to a prospect.  I bet lots of folks can relate to that. Even better, it's funny because you instantly get a visual of thousands of internet marketers on their knees, scrubbing away!  The interview process is a goldmine.

Another benefit: not only does conducting interviews elevate your status as a professional, but the people you interview will feel flattered and excited that you wanted their opinion.  They will talk about their experience and start creating a buzz around your book before the first words have hit the page.

Step Three: Writing Your eBook

Using the information you have gathered in your interviews and research, write your sales page.  This may seem backwards, but as you write out the bulletpoints of the problems you are addressing in the book as well as the solutions you have to offer for those problems; you will have the beginning of your actual outline!

As I go about organizing information for a long piece, like an eBook, I use sticky notes and a posterboard or large sheet from a drawing pad.

Jot down all the topics you think of on to individual sticky notes.  As you brainstorm the various things you want to cover, you can move the sticky notes around in columns on the poster board to experiment with how they group naturally together.  Your finished project should be between 5 to 10 chapters or around 150 pages, give or take.  Romancing the Sale wound up being 133 pages including the Resource Page and the dreaded "Disclaimer." 

I hate those things, but you have to have them nowadays.  it always gets me to think someone might sue because they dropped the book on the floor, tripped on it, broke their leg and now YOU are liable for the damages!  lol  Some folks just write up a general "information is to the best of author's knowledge and individual results may vary."  Since I already had a legal form, I just used that - I think it even covers the "not responsible if you trip over the book" scenario!

Once you have your sticky notes the way you think you want them, write an outline of your ideas. You're still just listing at this point.  But as you group your headings into chapters, and the content within those chapters, you should see a "story" emerge.  In other words, the ideas should flow freely from one topic to the next in a logical progression.  If you have a chapter on potty training your two-year-old, it should not include a section about teenagers and their dirty laundry.  Although, there is a case to be made on the similarities between teenagers and two's in some respects!

Step Four: Start Writing Your eBook!

With a firm understanding of the need you want to address, the feelings and frustrations your prospects are dealing with, and the solutions you have to offer, you are ready to begin writing.

Keep your writing style light - don't try to be overly academic here.  The more conversational your writing style is, the easier it will be for your reader not to get bogged down in the information you are sharing.

If there is any room for misunderstanding, it will happen.  Explain what you mean thoroughly.  Give examples, sometimes more than one to illustrate your main points.  If you can use graphics or pictures to further explain the material, by all means do so.

When you have your first draft done, give it to interested people to read.  It won't help to enlist family or friends if they are not into the subject matter, because they will tend to "skim" and you won't get the kind of feedback you need.  If you offer a free copy to someone in your industry, you will get far better input - because they will be reading it for the information provided as well as doing you a favor.  If a concept isn't clear, they will let you know.  Your spouse may assume they don't understand it because it isn't their field, not because the copy wasn't clear.

Read the finished copy aloud several times.  Even if you have a strong background in writing, you will find typos and grammatical errors with each reading.  To my horror, I had misspelled the name of one of my mentors in the book - I caught it at the last minute.  Of course, the advantage of an eBook, is that you can go back in and fix things even after release; but better to have it right the first time around.

Next time, we'll go into what you do with your book once it's been written.  Stay tuned.

Get your own copy of my eBook by clicking here: Romancing the Sale.