Voice mail is invaluable to most companies, but is only as effective as the person using it. Consider these 5 ways to make voice mail more effective.

1. Help callers save time

When you record your voice mail message, let the caller know within the first few seconds whether or not he or she can bypass it. Long, boring messages are annoying, and most of the time callers don’t listen to them anyway. Instead of wasting callers’ time by making them listen to a long message, give each person the option to go straight to the tone.

2. Communicate clearly

Your outgoing message should be short, simple, and professional. Don’t forget to include your website address to help callers get more information about your company. Also include your e-mail address to give callers another way to contact you. If you notice that you get the same question day after day, add that answer to your voice mail.

3. Check your message

Don’t assume that your message is flawless. After you record your message, listen to it to make sure there aren’t any unwanted background noises and that your voice sounds clear. One of my clients didn’t realize that her dog was howling in the other room while she recorded her outgoing message. A few weeks later, one of her friends filled her in and she recorded it again while siting in her car.

4. Stop playing games

At the end of your message, ask the caller for the best time to return his or her call. Make sure you do the same when you leave messages for others. This will help you avoid phone tag, and if you don’t want to talk to that person, you can call during the times they said that they wouldn’t be available.

5. Be selective

Not all voice mail systems hold an unlimited number of messages. Instead of saving all of your messages, do something with them. After you write down or enter the message and number, erase it. Otherwise, callers may get a message that your voice mailbox is full.

How do you make your voice mail more effective?

He never knew why, but I did business with his competitor instead of with him.

No matter how talented you are, or how great your business reputation is, at some point you’re going to have to get past business gatekeepers. Consider these three gate-crashing tips.

Don’t push harder

When you can’t get through to someone, your first thought may be to push harder. Instead of making progress, you’ll aggravate the person on the other end of the line. At that point you essentially squelch any chance you may have had of seeing or talking with the person they’re protecting. And by the way, yelling, “Don’t you know who I am?” rarely works.

Make a list

If you don’t know it already, personal assistants and receptionists should be at the top of your list…the “be extra nice” list. They’re the gatekeepers and they can mean the difference between letting your calls go through, answering your e-mails, and giving you access to key contacts.

Get to know the gatekeeper

The more you call a company to try to reach a key contact, take the time to get to know the gatekeeper’s name. It’s even better if you can learn more about him or her. Keep good notes and when you call, ask the gatekeeper about his or her kids, talk about the weather, or ask the person about anything else to keep the conversation going.

Gatekeepers can make your business life a bit easier. By taking the time to get to know the person who can potentially block your way, you can break down barriers between you and your key contacts.

How do you get past gatekeepers?

source: schipulites

My friend’s grandma used to say, “Don’t do special for me.” She didn’t want anyone to make a fuss over her because she knew her family cared and they didn’t need to prove it to her.

What about your clients? Do they know you care? Meeting your clients’ needs, completing their projects on time, and helping their business grow is part of your commitment to your clients. It’s also one way to show them indirectly that you truly take an interest in them.

Consider these five easy, inexpensive, yet more direct ways to show your clients that you care.

#1 Congratulate your clients on milestone events

When a client is celebrating a birthday, anniversary or a promotion, you can send an e-card, but a card you send via snail mail can mean even more. Don’t just sign the card…include a short, personal note. Although you’ll want to acknowledge happy occasions, don’t forget the sad ones. One of my clients recently lost her husband to cancer, so I sent her a card and made a donation to the charity included in her husband’s obituary. It was a small gesture but I wanted her to know that I was thinking of her during a difficult time for her and her family.

To read the rest of my guest post on Success Your Way, click here.

source: discoodoni

A friend of mine keeps as many promises as she breaks. Why are we still friends? The main reason is that the promises she makes to me aren’t important.

When she promises to meet me for coffee, I enter the time in my iPhone and then before I leave my house, I send her a text to confirm. Sometimes she remembers and sometimes she doesn’t.

While those broken promises aren’t earth-shattering and haven’t affected our friendship, if she did the same thing to her clients, her client list were dry up. To a client, any broken promise is important, so you need to do what you can to keep every promise you make.

Start with these tips.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver

A huge corporate client with a large budget may tempt you to make promises you can’t keep, and add more to your plate than you can handle. Before you say yes to a request from a big client, take a close look at your current schedule and decide whether or not you have time to complete the job. Don’t forget to consider if you’re even the right person to handle the project. If not, recommend someone else who can help your client.

Prioritize your projects and clients

The minute you sit down at your desk each morning, make sure you have a clear idea of the tasks and projects that need your attention that day. Start by reviewing your list of ongoing projects. Bringing in new clients is important, but don’t forget about your existing clients. If a prospect calls you and you accept the project, how will the new client affect the attention and service your current clients expect? Will you be able to do a good job if you face a time crunch? You have one chance to make a first impression and if your work isn’t up to par, you’ll lose any chance of building a long-term relationship with any client.

Build in a cushion

When you promise something to a client, do your best to gauge how long it will take you to finish the project and then, if possible, add a week. That gives you extra days to make sure you deliver what you promise, when you promise it. Even if you’re the most qualified person to handle a job, yet you can’t meet your client’s deadline, you could damage your relationship with that client. And rebuilding a damaged relationship can take longer than you think.

As the old saying goes, “Promises are made to be broken,” but that doesn’t mean they should be.

What strategies do you use to make sure you keep your promises?

When your business is thriving, you may not be worrying about getting more clients. On the other hand, if you’re waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that prospects will fill out your “get more info” form, and you have more bills to pay than clients to cover them, you’re probably thinking about ways to find more clients.

You can go after new clients, which can cost time and money, or you can find new ways to serve old clients. Studies show that it’s less expensive to service an existing client than to market to a prospect.  Consider these tips before you spend more time and money trying to find new clients.

• Anticipate your clients’ needs. You don’t have to be psychic (although it wouldn’t hurt) to gauge your clients’ thoughts and concerns. Some people use intuition while others use a more direct approach: they simply ask their clients for other ways they can help them. If you ask the same question rephrased differently each time — try not to be annoying — you should get the information you’re missing.

• Be a resource to your clients. If a client asks you to do something that’s outside your area of expertise, recommend someone else. Your client will appreciate your willingness to help and when they need your help again, you should be the first person they call. Make sure you recommend someone reliable, because if they drop the ball, it reflects poorly on you.

• Create new products or services based on your clients’ needs. For years I’ve heard from clients who have moved from one part of the country to the other, but still want to work with me individually. Some weren’t able to fly me to their home offices, so I had to refer them to a colleague in their city. The light bulb finally went off and I started offering consultations via Skype. At first I didn’t think the virtual consultations would work, but they do, and have become a large chunk of my business.

Before you give up on a client who hasn’t contacted you lately, ask yourself it there are any other services you can offer them. They’ll enjoy hearing from you, you’ll enjoy reconnecting with them, and the bottom line: you’ll be able to help them again.

How have you found new ways to help old clients?

source: Ant Smith

Yesterday, I grabbed a sandwich at a deli near my house and the place was packed. While I was waiting in line, one of the employees almost knocked me over. He was busy mopping the floor and putting the rugs back, while customers tried to walk past him to pick up their orders.

The floor needed to be mopped, but did the guy have to mop during the busy lunch rush? He was doing the right thing, but his timing was off.

How is your timing? Consider these questions:

Do you follow up with clients when say you will?

A superstar realtor friend of mine has had a record year. Why? She calls her prospects back on the exact day she promises to call. When she shows that much attention to detail, the prospects are so impressed (and surprised), they hire her to represent them.

One of the few times a prospect she was working with decided to sign with another realtor, was when she responded to the prospect’s text at 3 am. The client had sent the text at dinnertime the night before and didn’t appreciate the text in the middle of the night.

Do you respond to e-mails within a few hours or a few days?

So many of us are spoiled. When we send an e-mail, we expect a response within hours (I know I do). If we wanted a response days later, we could send letters via snail mail. Who does that? Even if you don’t have the information your prospect or client wants, send him or her an e-mail to let the person know you’re still working on the project.

Do you focus on tasks that need your attention this week instead of ones that you could handle a week from now?

Whether you put off tasks because you don’t want to handle them, or you wait until the last minute to finish a project, you open yourself up to making huge mistakes. Focus on the tasks with the earliest deadlines and, while you can throw in a few easy tasks that may not due for a week, go back to the tasks you need to finish right away. Keep in mind that even though you may be busy, that doesn’t mean you’re being productive.

Do you expect clients to respond to you during the weekend?

Unless you’re a realtor or someone who has to work on the weekend, don’t expect your clients to answer your e-mails or take your calls until Monday. A friend of mine was angry with one of his clients because the client hadn’t answered my friend’s e-mail right away. He had sent the e-mail to the client after 6 pm on Friday and by Sunday night, he still hadn’t heard from him.

In life and in business, timing is everything.

I thought they’d work well together.

I was wrong.

Relationships aren’t always as they seem

Last week I sent my remodeling friend an e-mail to ask her how things were going with the architect. She sent me a one-page e-mail describing everything that had gone wrong with the project. She couldn’t understand why I would have a friend as nasty and unprofessional as my architect friend.

Crap!

I had no idea how unhappy she was or what was going on.

How you communicate makes all the difference

When I suggested that my friends work together, what I didn’t count on was their lack of good communication. The architect likes to talk on the phone and meet in person with clients, while my remodeling friend wants to handle her house project through e-mail.

E-mail is a phenomenal way to communicate and save time, but it’s easy to misinterpret what someone writes. You may think you’re making your point clearly, while the other person is thinking something completely opposite.

Meeting face to face and seeing the other person’s expression, can change the way a conversation goes. By hearing someone’s response on the other end of the line, you can tell right away whether or not you’ve offended someone.

Sometimes you have to involve others

My friends had been working on this project for weeks, but neither of them mentioned anything to me about the problems they were having working together.

The architect didn’t feel comfortable divulging information about her client (kind of like the client/patient confidentiality regulations in medicine) and my remodeling friend didn’t want me to feel bad for recommending a friend of mine who wasn’t working out for her.

After I read my remodeling friend’s “architect from hell” e-mail, I called the architect to ask her what was going on. She explained a few things to me and then everything made sense.

When I hung up with the architect, I called my other friend and explained a few things about how remodeling projects work. She said that she felt better.

I’m not involved with the project but I feel responsible for making sure their working relationship gets back on track.

Move forward or move on

Both of my friends agree that until the project is finished, they’ll have to meet in person and talk on the phone more. Their next meeting is next week and I’ll be there too.

I’ve always followed the advice “don’t do business with friends,” but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop recommending my friends to each other.  It’s worked out well other times.

What I have stopped doing, however, is fixing up one friend with another. That never works.

She has too many clients.

In my book, that’s a good problem. Not so, in hers.

Instead of running her business the way she wants, she’s letting her clients take over.

Her main complaint is that a client will call her and expect to get an appointment within the next few days. (I learned the hard way and now book my next appointment before I leave her salon.) She feels bad about turning away clients, so she stays late or comes in early. She’s finally reached the point of burnout and isn’t sure what to do.

We talked about a few things she can do to enjoy her business again.

• Raise prices. She told me that she hasn’t changed her prices in four years. Although I’ll be paying more for a cut, she’s worth it.

• Have a set schedule and keep it. Her need to make everyone happy is making her miserable. She’s working long hours and going home exhausted. By having set hours, she’ll be able to limit the number of clients she works with each week. The clients who value her time and skills will wait for her. Those who don’t, will go somewhere else.

• Be direct with clients. She’s going to let her clients know that they need to book appointments with her early. She’s happy to put clients on a waiting list but can’t guarantee there will be an opening at a time that works for them.

After my stylist makes a few changes, she can focus on why she started her own business…to work her own hours with clients who appreciate her.

I’ll take clients like that anytime.

She knows that at some point a few of her clients won’t need her services, so now she offers a service called “Design Plan.” It’s for the do-it-yourself client who wants design help, but isn’t willing to pay for an interior designer. This new service is keeping her busy.

Are there any services or products you can add to your business?

• If you’re an attorney, you could offer a package deal for small business owners who want to incorporate. If you’re a Web designer, why not offer a down-and-dirty site adjustment that simply fine-tunes someone’s site? A realtor could offer complete home sale services from organizing to staging to moving out.

• Use the Internet to expand your business. A few months ago I added video home office consulting to my list of services. For years I’ve worked with clients in person but I can’t be everywhere and not all clients can afford my services. At first I didn’t think the idea would work, but after working with clients all over the country, I can’t believe I didn’t do virtual consulting years ago.

• Survey your clients to find out what they want. Your clients and others who may be considering using your product or service can give you valuable insight. SurveyMonkey offers an inexpensive way to collect the information you need. Polldaddy is another good service.

Think outside the home-based business box and figure out a different way to package your services or expand your product line. Your next big product or over-the-top service idea could get you out of a rut faster than you think.

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One day a Japanese reporter called to tell me he was coming to Dallas to interview small business owners.

I panicked.Where were we supposed to meet?

My only choice was to invite him to my home office. The interview went well (I think). I’ll never know because the article was in Japanese.

Holding a client meeting in your playroom or trying to make your kitchen look like the local coffee shop — maybe your neighbor can pose as a barrista — isn’t the same as finding an off-site place to meet. It can take away from the professional image you’ve worked so hard to create.

The NFIB article “7 Places to Hold a Meeting When You Run Your Business From Home” offers a complete list of places to go when you need to meet with a client. Some of the places are obvious, while others are ones you may not have considered.

1. Your local chamber of commerce. You’re probably going to have to be a member to use their offices —that’s one of the perks when you join — but check with your local chamber to find out.

2. Your bank. This is one place I wouldn’t have thought about using but every bank has a conference room. Maybe a trade-off for paying little to no interest on your accounts is to let you borrow their conference room.

3. The local library. Most libraries have a room where they hold “story hour” and other events. Your taxes pay for the library, so why not use it?

4. A restaurant banquet room. You may have to pay a room rental fee or they may waive the fee so long as you order food and drinks.

5. A hotel conference room. Unlike a restaurant, you can bring in your own food. Check with the hotel before you walk in with platters of sandwiches.

6. A co-working facility. For a monthly, weekly or per-use fee, you can use a co-working site to hold a meeting. The only downside is that you may have limited privacy if the facility doesn’t have individual meeting rooms. Co-working sites are also a good place to work when you need a break from the noise and chaos at home.

7. A virtual office. This is the closest thing to having a corporate office, without a boss looming over your shoulder. Usually there’s a waiting room and a receptionist, and you can pick and choose the services you want to use. A few resources for finding a virtual office in your area are Intelligent Office and Regus Business Centers.

Where do you meet with clients?