Growing your Business

Last night we reviewed some ideas on new business opportunities. Tonight we are going to briefly cover other ideas on growing your business. When the economy is great, money flows easily and readily. When the economy is robust, even poorly run businesses survive. They say that money cures many evils, which is true. But when the money flow slows, or even comes to a halt, that is when we separate the good from the poorly run businesses.

As money coming in slows down, many business owners finally take a good hard look at their financial statements (sometimes this is the first time they have looked in a very long time) and start finding ways to reduce expenses or basically cut costs. It is in times like these where you find the efficient businesses begin to grow. In times of economic downturns many new business opportunities spring up, filling the gap from those that no longer exist. It is less expensive to find rental space, products may cost less and more companies and people are more willing to sell at lower prices.

If you want your business to grow though, you always have to remember the customer. Continue to build your long-relationship with them. Don't forget to do a follow up call, find out if the customer is happy with your product or service. Find out what else they would like to see you provide. They may offer some very helpful insights into growing your business or product line. Keep your customers happy because they are one of the best marketing tools that you have. If your customers are happy, they will do all the advertising for you at no cost to you. But, conversely, if your customers are unhappy with your business, product or services, they will tell more people than you could ever reach with expensive advertising campaigns.

As we have discussed before, the customer is king and they are your best marketing tool. Be sure that you have under-promised and over-delivered. Always smile, and smile honestly, do not put on a fake smile, the customers can tell the difference. If you are having a bad day, strive to not let that problem run over onto your sales floor so that the customers may experience it too. Be sincere, and most importantly, be honest with your customers. They will remember and reward you with your honesty by keeping a long-term relationship with you.

If you have a list of customers who have utilized your products or services in the past, don't be afraid to send them a brief newsletter, letting them know what is happening and what new promotions you may currently have in place. You may be surprised to see some older customers come back because of your brief newsletter. In your newsletter, do not try to sell your customers something, more importantly, offer a service for them. Become a "go-to" source of information for your customer. Allow them to feel comfortable asking you questions without them fearing you are going to push a sale onto them. You want your customers to see you as a valuable asset, not someone to be avoided.

If you keep your communications up with your current and old customer base, you may be surprised at the positive response you receive. Don't send them countless messages about sales, send a brief, monthly newsletter and perhaps sprinkle that newsletter with some fun anecdote's. People are always looking for something to feel good about, perhaps provide a positive, or inspirational story (again brief) and you may discover your customers looking forward to your monthly missives. If they like what they read, they may even share your newsletters with others, again advertising for you.

The benefit for keeping the message short should be obvious. How many of us have time to read all of the messages from our Inbox anymore? Keep your message short, don't advertise too hard, and allow your customers to have fun reading your monthly message.

Hopefully these ideas were helpful and will benefit you in growing your business.

If you are looking for an additional income stream, we do offer some small business opportunities. Feel free to review our website for ideas and contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

How to keep blogging

Last night we talked a little bit about how to stay motivated to continue posting blogs. We covered some pitfalls of blogging and how to possibly get past the excuses... Tonight we are going to continue our theme on how to keep blogging. I was never very consistent writing in my diary as a child, so am constantly amazed that this blog has been going for over a year now.

The biggest difference between blogging and writing in a diary is that when blogging, you may not be divulging your innermost secrets, you are actually talking with others. At least that is how I view blogging. It really is no different than being a reporter writing a column for a paper. The biggest difference is that usually what you print will post without any editor checking your work. Not sure if no editor is a good idea, but hey, at least you get to say what you want to say when you want to say it. The downside is that depending on discussion topic, you could easily alienate your readers. That is a risk you take though, every time you take up the proverbial pen and paper (or keyboard and computer screen...)

So, the question is, how to keep blogging when your ideas may be running thin, or you just aren't in the mood. As we touched upon last night, theoretically, you should have a backlog of written blogs already scheduled to post, but some of us don't have THAT much to say at one time of the week. One of the tricks I use to keep my blogs short, but useful is to basically bribe myself. There are things I would really rather be doing on some nights of the week. In order for me to enjoy those activities, I make myself blog before the activity takes place. That is an amazing way to inspire blogs.

If you know what you want, and see a definitive end to your blogging day, you tend to get more inspired than if you saw the whole evening stretching out in front of you with no sense of urgency. Granted, some people are not driven well by deadlines, but I have found setting specific deadlines does keep the ideas flowing better. Sort of like a synthetic procrastination. You have a deadline to make, and that could be when you do your best work.

Another trick that has been helpful, is to not over think a subject. This may sound a bit odd, but it may make more sense once explained. You have a blogging idea, you research the daylights out of that idea. You now have squished in your brain a ton of information on your topic, and suddenly you are in a brain vapor-lock. You now have too much information vying for position on your blog page. What I have found helpful is to write down what you know, or want to say, in outline form and then put the outline away for a day or two. Yeah, that doesn't help the blog you want to write tonight, but it will make a much better article tomorrow. If you give your brain some time to absorb and process all the information it obtained, you will find that if you give it a day or so, your ideas crystallize and your article will practically write itself.

There are times when you need to give your brain the opportunity to process and compartmentalize the information you have been stuffing into it. Otherwise, you may end up putting too much information in your article and losing people along the way. In today's rushed life, we only have a little time to dedicate to relaxing and/or informative reading, so it is important to provide good information, but not information overload. Keep it short, effective and sweet. You will have more fun writing, and your readers should have more fun reading.

Tomorrow, we will switch subjects, (to help prevent the aforementioned information overload) and you will just have to dial in to see what the new topic will be.

If you are looking for a second income stream are interested in starting your own home based business, our website might have something to interest you. Please let us know if you have any questions regarding earning a second income or starting your own home based business. We would love to hear from you.

Until tomorrow...

Epicurean Marketplace

Well, Saturday we participated in an Epicurean Marketplace at the AJ's Fine Foods at 31311 N. Scottsdale Rd., Scottsdale. If you have never been to this AJ's, you are missing an awesome experience. The people there were great, the customers were wonderful and to top it all off, the weather was perfect.

For those of you who may have seen the AJ's Fine Foods, but never entered, it is a boutique gourmet market serving Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. The AJ's concept was created in 1985 with a mission to bring an upscale gourmet market experience to the Vally. Since then, they have grown to include 13 markets in the metro Phoenix area. They have specialty items, prime cuts, floral item, gifts and so much more. If you are looking for that hard-to find wine, or micro-brew beer, this is the place to go. I was drooling over the huge selection of micro-brews and would have spent every penny earned on what they had in the cooler if I had not been working the Epicurean Marketplace outside. AJ's is like no grocery store I have been in before.

The Epicurean Marketplace on Saturday was a sight to behold. They had about 50 vendors outside, many of them were fine art vendors. There were also food vendors offering many delectable items to sample. There were enough different vendors offering samples that you could easily make a meal from the samples alone. Many of the items sampled were also offered by AJ's for sale on a regular basis. It was wonderful to be able to taste these items before purchasing something I have never sampled.

The artwork showcased outside was wonderful. There were many paintings, oils, sculptures and jewelry. There was also a gentleman who hand painted bird houses. These bird houses were so beautiful that I would not leave them outside. On a few of his bird houses he had even individually shingled them with copper. These bird houses were works of art. If you have the opportunity to visit an Epicurean Marketplace, I would highly recommend that you at least wander by. There was so much to offer, and such a wide variety of art and food, that most people would have found something to delight in. We were able to offer our Waterless Cleaning technology products and StemTech, our stem cell nutritional products. We had a great opportunity to talk to many people at this event.

Next week we will be attending another Marketplace at the Basha's in Queen Creek. Again there should be a wide variety of vendors for your viewing and eating pleasure. It will be from 10-4 this Saturday, October 16th. Hopefully we will see you there. If you have questions about location, or questions about our products, please feel free to e-mail us, we would love to hear from you.

Until tomorrow...

Promoting your Business while traveling

Well, as many of you know, we have been on the road for over 3 weeks now. The million dollar question is, how do you go about promoting your business while traveling? As we have discussed in prior posts, there are many different ways that you can promote your home based business, but the key here is to keep the costs down and maximize your business exposure.

One of the easiest ways to promote your business while traveling is to have some form of signage on your vehicle. It is important that your signs are easily read, remember people will be driving past your vehicle, and will not have a lot of time to read any small print. (you really don't want people straining to read your sign, you may cause accidents). You do want your signage to be eye-catching and cause people to sit up and take notice. Getting some form of signage for your vehicle will cost some money, but it will pay dividends down the road. How will people know you are in business if you do not have some form of external advertising? As always, before you spend money, make sure you are comfortable with the type of sign you will have on your vehicle. Also, be sure that you get several quotes from different sign places. You may even want to let some of the sign shops know that you are comparing prices, you may be able to negotiate a better deal, or depending on what you have to offer, you may be able to work some kind of trade agreement.

After you have signage on your vehicle, it is much easier to let people know you are in business while you are traveling. We don't have signs on our motor home, but have an eye-catching sign on our trailer. The majority of time when we are traveling, the trailer is attached to the motor home, so by default, the motor home has a form of signage too. Be sure your signage has some way for the people to contact you, either a phone number or website or e-mail or some combination of the above. It is highly likely that people will not contact you while you are driving around, but when you are stopped, expect people to either come up to you and ask about your products and services, or they may use your posted contact information. We have had many occasions where, when we stop at rest areas or store parking lots, people come up to us inquiring about our products and services.

Lastly, be sure to park in populated areas. I do not mean stopping in the middle of the street, more like parking in lots that have lots of foot traffic. You do not want to park far away from where the people are, you want them to see your vehicle. When we are traveling, we strive to be in RV parks that have many campers. As much as you may want to have some peace and quiet, going to quiet places will not help you to advertise your business. On many occasions, when we are checking into RV parks, (RV park offices are major hubs of activity) we almost always get questions regarding our signs on the trailer. Many of the inquiries have lead to business.

In a nutshell, just by advertising your business on your vehicle, you can generate more business without directly approaching strangers. By having people come to you and inquire about what you have to offer, you have turned the tables and now instead of selling to the customer, you are providing a requested service to a new, prospective customer. The new contacts are not afraid of you because they have come to you with a question, you did not approach them with an "offer". You are now placed in a position of providing a requested service and are not viewed as a salesperson. This is an excellent situation to be in and much easier to continue to promote your business.

If you are looking for a small home-based business idea, please review http://www.hawgwash.net/. We may have some opportunities that would interest you. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Until tomorrow...

Last Bashas Outdoor Marketplace for the Spring

Well, today's Bashas' Outdoor Marketplace was sort of bitter-sweet for us. Today marks the last day that we will participating in the Outdoor Marketplace until the Fall. Granted, there appear to only be about 3-4 more Marketplaces scheduled, through mid-June, but we will not be in town to participate.

Today's Marketplace was held at the Bashas' Grocery store in Gilbert, AZ. The day dawned beautiful and cool, a good sign for an outdoor event. By the time we got to the Gilbert store, the sun was already getting everything warm. The great news is that since it was cool all evening, it took time for the sun to warm everything up past comfortable. The participating vendors began appearing a little before 7 am and had a very orderly set up, even without assigned spaces.

Not having assigned spaces and an orderly set up is not something you usually see. Most vendors get a little crazy when there isn't assigned spots, and then they get a tad agressive towards others. What was really cool is that it appeared all the vendors got along with each other and none had any fits about where they set their booth up. A lot of that professionalism most likely came from the professionalism of the Store Manager, Paul Short. Even though there were no assigned spaces, Paul made sure all vendors knew where to begin setting up before they had parked their vehicles to start unloading. Setup was an extremely calm and wonderful affair. There are days where, even when we had assigned spaces, I wished for a very organized setup.

After all vendors were ready and open for business, we had an extremely large amount of people wandering around. Personally, I was very surprised at the people wandering the various booths at 8 am, but then, I have to remember that we are in Arizona, it gets HOT by noon. True to that, the temperatures started soaring. Depending on where you looked, today either broke the triple digits for the first time this year, or we didn't...

I know that sounds odd, but people here in Arizona track when we first break the triple digit barrier. As we drove past a Walgreen's, their display indicated it was 104, but all the other "official" websites I visited indicated it only got to 98 degrees. Wow, a difference of 6 degrees. Once temperatures get past 95, then in my book, anything is hot. It is either a measure of hot, hotter or painful. Today was only hot in my book. This was one of the rare times that anything over 95 really didn't make me feel bad. Perhaps I didn't respond to the heat like I usually do because I have been taking the STEMTech products for going on 6 months now. I will be keeping an eye on my heat tolerance and let you know if perhaps STEMTech products may help your body deal with extremes in temperatures better.

Well, back to the Bashas' Outdoor Marketplace today - we were all very busy up until about 12:30 pm, which was far busier than I had ever expected for this time of year, and for as warm as it had gotten by 10 am. The people that did wander around were also very eager to really look at what everyone had to offer. We have been at some events where people just walked up and down the isles, staying in the middle of the isles, and not even wandering close enough to any tables to see what may even be for sale. This event was different, the people looking, were actually interested in what we all had to offer. That was another wonderful experience today.

Overall, we had a great time at the Bashas' Outdoor Marketplace today and will be looking forward to participating in them once it cools off again in the Fall. Now we focus on our Motorcycle rallies, and traveling around the country meeting great people along the way. This is an extremely exciting time for us, and we look forward to getting on the road again very soon.

With luck, we may get to bump into some of you in our travels. Keep an eye on our Schedule of Events, that page is updated as we receive show confirmations. Perhaps you can attend one of the events we will be at. If so, please stop by and say "Hi".

Until tomorrow...

Promoting Your Home Based Business

Today we are going to briefly change subjects and again discuss some ways of promoting your home based business. One potentially cost effective way to promote your business is to participate in small, local outdoor markets or festivals or rallies. Many of them are held every weekend, you just have to look around to see them. You may find some events held in local church parking lots, some in grocery store parking lots, and many times in open areas near shopping malls.

There are several advantages to participating in these open marketplaces. One advantage is that usually there is minimal (if any) cost to be a vendor there. Another advantage is that you get to personally meet the people that could be interested in your product or service. You can talk to the local residents and find out what they are really interested in. You can hand out business cards or flyers to everyone who walks by your booth and the best part is that you can set up a booth with just a simple table, chair and possible tent.

Attached a picture of what our booth looks like at a local marketplace. We did invest in a banner (what you see wrapped around the table - like a table skirt) and a tent. The tent is very necessary especially when it is bright, sunny and even a little warm out. Sitting outside for 4-5 hours in the sun can really be an otherwise exhausting experience. There are simple chairs that you should also bring, but I recommend that you bring chairs that will allow you to be seen at your booth when you are sitting. We used to have small lawn chairs at our booth, but the problem was that when you sit down, you are at or below table level, and customers walking by your booth may think there is nobody at your booth. We have found that if the booth looks unattended, people will not stop to see what your table is offering. We usually have some tall chairs (like director's chairs) or a tall stool to sit on so that the booth always has somebody visible in it.

What we put on the table are products that are for sale, flyers for services we offer (car, boat, motorcycle and RV detailing for our business), business cards with contact phone numbers on it and informational brochures about the products we offer for sale. We make sure to have enough product to sell immediately to customers, because when they attend an event like this, they usually want to make a purchase now and take the product home today. We are living in an immediate gratification society, so people tend to not want to wait for an order to come in.

We make sure the information brochures are handed out to people that are seriously interested in our products. We also recommend that when you hand out brochures they include your contact name, phone number, e-mail address and website (if you have one) so that if the customer wants to make a purchase later, or wants to re-order product, they can easily get in touch with you. What really works well about the brochures is that even if the person did not purchase from you at the time, that brochure can have a tendency to "develop legs". What I mean by that is the brochure may be left on the potential customer's table, and someone else may pick it up and begin asking questions about what is on the brochure. That other person may the your million-dollar sale, you never know.

But by having that brochure run around other people's homes and offices, you have managed to get advertising out to a targeted audience (if they were not interested in your products, they would not have asked for an information brochure) and will most likely generate sales from that. Your main cost is in getting brochures printed, but the rest is essentially free advertising. Do not expect each brochure to generate sales, but as you get more brochures and business cards out into the local area, people will begin recognizing you and your products/services and may be more inclined to purchase from you in the future. Most importantly, this is a very affordable way to promote your home based business.

Not all open markets or rallies will generate money for you that day. It is sort of like gambling, some days you may do really well, other days, not so well. The important thing is to always be cheerful when at your booth and to always be willing to talk to everyone who passes by. That is because the next time a potential customer meets you, they will probably remember how you treated them at the rally. You never know when you might meet that person again, it may be in a grocery store, when you are both standing in the check-out line. At that time, they may see you and remember having met you at the market. That chance meeting may even generate more sales in the future, you never know.

Please feel free to contact us if you are looking for ideas on how to find local, outdoor markets in your area. You can e-mail us at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. We would love to help you get your home based business off the ground without spending an arm and a leg in advertising.

Until tomorrow...

Improving your Small Business

Tonight we are going to touch on a few ways to improve your small business. We have covered several ways to expand your marketing, some ways to expand your market share, how to inspire people and how to have customer's sell themselves on your products. Even with all those discussions, there are still more ways to improve your small business and hopefully make it more profitable.

As you may have noticed on our website, we have a number of diverse items for sale and we offer several income opportunities. All of this starts on this one website. Even though choice is a wonderful thing there are times when too much choice will prevent a potential customer from making any decision. We have been in situations where, when offered a half a dozen choices of similar products, we opted to do nothing because the quantity of choices was so large. We needed to stop, and analyse each of the options, eliminate some before we could even begin to make a choice to purchase. If you walk into a used car lot without any specific car in mind, didn't you find the choices to be more than a little overwhelming? If you didn't know what car you wanted, and didn't have a firm amount you wanted to pay in your mind, you would look at that sea of cars and think you had an impossible task of picking just one.

The key to having multiple items for sale is to almost have the choices limited to two or three. That way, the customer has choices, but not so many that they can't make a decision. The problem with our website is that all the choices are right there, in front. Some people like this style, others have not been so complimentary. What our plan is for our site, the home page you go to has three options. One choice is for retail product sales, one choice is for business opportunities, and the last choice is for scheduling a vehicle detail. This way, people have choices, but they are not all in their face. After they choose one of the three options, the visitor would then have the opportunity to navigate around into a narrower selection of items more to their interest.

Again, we are providing choices, but these choices are now more tailored to the individual looking at the website. You need to provide options for customers to look at. As we have discussed before, if choice was a bad thing, grocery stores would not have so many different products on their shelves. But even in the grocery store, you don't see row upon row of choices, you have a few choices for the same type of product, then you have a few choices with some different products. If you think about it, grocery stores provide you with two or three competing choices in the same product line. Again, too many choices for the same type of item will almost paralyse customers and they ultimately not purchase anything.

The key is to provide some variety in your business so customers will be inclined to shop and know they are provided choices. They will be more inspired to come by because you offer a selection of items to purchase. This may in itself generate more sales and improve your small business.

Tomorrow we will continue this discussion of improving your business, we will cover some other elements of your business and how to conduct your business a little differently to perhaps generate more traffic.

Until tomorrow...

Update on Basha's Outdoor Festival

Today we did not expect much out of the weather other than bad weather. The weather reports had indicated we would have rains starting either in the afternoon or evening and you all know how reliable the weather people can be. When the sun started to rise today, it looked like it was going to rain well before the afternoon. Being the brave souls that we were, we still took our chances and headed off to the Basha's Outdoor Festival in Gold Canyon.

Boy, was that the right thing to do. The weather remained very overcast, cool and at times windy, but by mid-afternoon, the clouds started breaking up and you could even cast a shadow on the ground. Once the clouds started thinning out, the air temperature seemed to rise a bit and you could see vendors taking off one of many layers of clothing. Even the customers seemed to not be concerned with the threatening clouds in the early part of the day. We had a significant amount of foot traffic, more than what I think any of us expected. Granted, I am always looking for the silver lining, but even I was pleased to see as many people wandering around the vendor booths as there were.

As the weather improved, we did find more people coming out to see what was going on in the Basha's parking lot. We had a wide variety of vendors offering anything from food to beautiful jewelery to photography, to paintings to shirts, to nutritionals and waterless vehicle wash (us...of course...). There was one vendor even offering children's t-shirts that could be colored on, then washed and then be able to re-color them. That I thought was great for the young artist in the family. Basha's did a great job in collecting vendors from all different walks of life, providing their customers with a wonderful selection to browse through. Along with the selection, the people themselves were awesome.

Again, I was very impressed with the customer participation in this event, especially in light of the fact that this weekend hosts not only the Renaissance Fair (running through March 28th) but the Lost Dutchman Days Rodeo and Fair in Apache Junction. People had a wide variety of venues to look at this weekend, so we were extremely blessed to have had such a good turnout.

Next week we will again be attending another Basha's Outdoor Festival on Saturday. With luck, the weather reports will be more favorable and there won't be as many other events we have to compete with. If you have the time, come on by and visit all of us. We always have a great time, and it is a wonderful opportunity to meet other small business people and home based business people that live and work in the area.

Until tomorrow...

Outdoor Fesitval (Marketplace) at Bashs's

Today was the day we were to spend at Basha's, located at 23760 S. Power Road, Queen Creek, AZ for their Outdoor Festival (Marketplace). We did spend a good bit of time there, getting there by 6:45 am, setting up by 8 am anticipating all the crowds only to have the rain start at 10:15 am and not really stop. First thing in the morning was fun, cool, but not too bad and we had very high cloud cover. By the time we finished setting our booth up at 8:30 am, the few clouds that were there had cleared, and we were beginning to feel very optimistic that the weather forecasts of rain all day were wrong, as is often the case.

Boy, were we surprised to see those nasty, heavy, dark rain clouds bearing down on us by 9:30 this morning. I still had high hopes, the wind was blowing, so I was telling everyone that the clouds would just "blow away". HA, I was so very wrong in that prediction. The temperature continued to drop until the rain started at 10:15. By then, you could see your breath when you talked to anyone who would brave the wet weather to see what nuts we were standing in the rain. After a little over an hour of holding down stuff that was trying to blow away, and getting wetter as the minutes ticked by, we ended up calling it quits. We were by far not the first to quit, the rush of vendors to get out once the rain started was pretty amazing. I had again been hoping for a quick rain, and then more clearing so we could get on with selling. I was obviously incorrect. Don't hire me as the next weather person, I don't do well at predicting any more.

Once we got back home, it was time to take all the wet stuff (and there was A LOT of wet stuff) inside to start the drying process. We took our EZUP Tent and now have it partially set up in back by the pool. Hopefully we won't have any significant winds to blow that tent into the pool. The way our luck has been running, I really expect to see the tent in the pool. On a lighter note, the dogs are TERRIFIED of the tent in the back yard. They will go through great lengths to walk around it, they won't walk under it. It is really funny to watch. When they take their usual route out of the house, they have to run under the tent to get into the larger part of the yard. They start their run, and stop so suddenly that they slide under the tent. Then then run back to the door and look at us wondering what evil thing we have now placed in their way. It takes a lot of coaxing to get them to walk around the tent so they can have full access to the back yard.

The reason this is so humerus is that when the tent is fully set up at events, the dogs have absolutely no fear of the tent and will always run to whoever is under the tent. They are pretty funny that way..

So, to recap, today's show was not really a show. We are hoping for much better weather at the Basha's in Gold Canyon for next Saturday. If you are in the neighborhood, we will be there from 10-4 pm talking to people about our business opportunities and showing anyone interested what our waterless wash products can do for vehicles.

More Marketing of your Business Opportunity

Yesterday we touched on two techniques that you could use to better market your business opportunity, answering customer complaints about your competitors and listening to your customer's problems. Today we are going to review two more techniques that can be very successful in helping you to market your business opportunity.

When you are talking to others about your business opportunity, you want to know as much as possible about the subject you are discussing. By becoming an expert in your field, that gives you more credibility with your customers. They will be more prone to come to you with questions, and they will be more willing to use what you have to offer, again because they perceive you as an expert. People trust experts, the downside is that you really do need to know what you are talking about. You cannot guess or make up answers, even if they sound credible, your customers will eventually find out that you really didn't know what you were talking about.

The best way to become well versed in your field is to sit down and talk with other experts in the field that your business opportunity is in. If you want to become well educated in Multi-Level Marketing, find out who is successful in that field and then pick their brains. You will be surprised at how many people will be willing to talk with you and offer their knowledge. The key is to research what you are doing and decide to become the best in that area.

Once you become an expert, don't be afraid to spread that knowledge. People are always hungry for knowledge, so don't be stingy. Remember that you learned from others, so keep the learning process going for you and others.

The last technique I would like to cover is how to get a "Positive" 'No' versus a "Negative" 'No" when asking customers questions. How many times have you flat-out asked people if they were interested in your business opportunity? How many people (even friends) told you NO? That flat 'No' can be very demoralizing. You will always get 'no' when you are in business. Part of the key to success is in looking at those "No's" as getting you closer to a "Yes", but there may be another way to change that NO to a much more positive "NO".

We are going to use our product line, UltraLuster, as an example. This is a waterless vehicle wash and is best marketed by demonstrating what it can do for your vehicle's finish. If a person walked up to our booth while I asked if they would like to see a demo of our products, I would most likely receive a "NO" and the person would turn their back on me and walk away. A better way to present the question would be, "Have you ever seen a vehicle washed without water?". The "NO" I would then receive is a positive "no" because I have piqued their interest. No, they haven't seen a vehicle cleaned without water, so I can then go on and do the demonstration.

The point behind this is that it is much better to ask open-ended questions rather than Yes/No questions. If you ask a Yes/No question, there is no room to explore. The question is answered and the customer loses interest. By asking and open-ended question, "have you ever washed your car without water?", you are engaging the customer, causing them to think about your question and wonder what you may have that would make their life better. By asking open-ended questions, you could end up getting the customer so excited about the product or service you are offering that they sell it to themselves. The best part about open-ended questions is that you now are starting to build a rapport with the customer and are not expecting to hear that "NO". You feel better and they feel better because they ended up possibly learning something from you.

Tomorrow I will switch gears and get off the marketing platform for a bit...perhaps another funny story, if something funny happens tomorrow..

Until then...

More Tips on how to Market your Business Opportunity

We had been talking late last month about several simple techniques for marketing your business opportunity. In prior blogs we discussed how to present your business values to your customers, how your opportunity will help your customers and don't give the customer too much information up front. Tonight we are going to briefly discuss how to answer customer complaints regarding your competition and how to show empathy towards your customers when they have problems or complaints.

When you are in business for yourself, you will most likely have competitors out there offering similar, if not the same products and services that you do. The key is to differentiate yourself from your competition so that customers will be more willing to come to you rather than to your competition. The problem you will most likely encounter (and this will be encountered some time down the road as you remain in business) is dealing with customers complaining to you about your competitor. The temptation will be great to jump on that bandwagon and help "bash" your competition, but that is not really what the customer wants, or needs to hear. Keep in mind, if you goad the customer into complaining about your competition, you really don't know if it is a temporary complaint with the customer, or something that will keep the customer away for the remainder of their business.

We will all annoy customers at some time or another. No matter how good you are in your business dealings, you will some day do something to irritate customers. It is not in your best interest to help the customer complain. Let the complaining customer talk out their irritation, take notes if appropriate and then focus on not doing what your competition did that aggravated your customer. Do the opposite of what you competition did and you will earn the respect of the customer base, more so than joining in on the complaint game.

As the customer is complaining about whatever annoyed them, be sure to understand what the problem your customer is describing. The key is to not just know the problem, but to understand what might be an underlying problem or concern. As a responsible business owner, you need to listen with compassion to your customer and then possibly restate to the customer what you believe the problem to be. Do not be judgmental, your customer is looking to you to solve the problem, not judge what they did or did not do. Your customer will appreciate the time you took to understand the problem and if you were able to read further into what is going on to see if you can assist in resolving the particular issue. Customers will be more willing to come to you for solutions to their problems if they know you are not going to judge them, and if they know that you are really listening to their concerns. This building of trust will be talked about by the customer to their friends and associates and will garner you more qualified business than any advertising campaign ever would.

Tomorrow we will discuss credibility and how to ask open ended questions that do not end in negative "No's".

If you are looking for business opportunities, we have several different opportunities on our website. If you are not sure what you are looking for in a business opportunity, please e-mail us with your questions and we will do what we can to help steer you in the direction you wish to go.

Until tomorrow...

More Marketing Techniques

Yesterday we reviewed two marketing techniques that will get you noticed, values and identity. People will remember your business more easily if they can identify with your values and what your business stands for. If the customers can identify with your values or identity, you have a higher likelihood of getting them to purchase from you.

Another marketing technique is to try to get the customer see themselves happier if they use your product or service. If you can get them to think about how much easier a portion of their life could be by using what you have to offer, they will be much more willing to make that purchase. To use our business as an example, think about washing your car with water in the cold weather. That doesn't make many people too excited. But...if you then have them picture cleaning their car in the comfort of their garage (which may be heated), they will definitely be more inspired to purchase your product. With our waterless technology, you don't get wet, you can clean your vehicle inside your garage, and you are a whole lot more comfortable. It was in the low 50's today, I would personally not be happy if I had to haul out a hose, spray the car with water (getting myself damp in the process) and then having to soap up the car and rinse. The chances of me staying dry are slim to none.

With UltraLuster Waterless wash, you can clean your car without a drop of water. You spray the product on the vehicle, wipe in, then buff off to a shine. You don't get wet, you don't make a puddle that could freeze in the colder night and the best part is that you can stop whenever you want. You do not have to wash the whole car if it really is too cold for you outside. You can clean portions of your car, which is something you can't do if you use soap and water.

So, you can see how much happier you would be by not using water on your car, especially in cold weather. We created a mental picture for your customers. These mental movies create an emotional response within the prospect, and could lead them to make a purchase of your product.

Tomorrow we will continue exploring other relatively simple but effective marketing techniques for your business.

Until tomorrow...

Small Business Marketing Techniques

Today I would like to review some more marketing techniques for small business owners. Even if you are considering a new business opportunity or are looking into a second income opportunity, these are things you should keep in mind when assessing other income opportunities.

If you are looking at a new business opportunity, you need to be sure those products and services fit in with your values and identity. Your values and your personal identity are what is going to allow the customer to identify with you and ultimately your products. If the product you sell is not in sync with the values you hold dear, your customers will wonder why you are selling that particular item. They will be able to sense the discord, though they may not be able to put their finger on what is making them uncomfortable, and they will not be entirely comfortable purchasing that particular product. People respect your opinions, and if you are selling something that goes against your basic set of beliefs, then people are going to wonder if you are being honest with them. If you are someone who hates pollution and are an avid supporter of "green" products, it would not make sense to sell products that cause the environment harm. If you want to save trees, you are not necessarily going to be successful selling chain saws...

Your values are the beliefs that you hold dear, the products you sell should be somewhat in line with your beliefs. You cannot be convince your customers to purchase anything that you are personally not excited and feel comfortable about. The same thing follows regarding your business identity. Your business identity is basically how you see your business's role in the world. Again, if your business identity is that of ecology, selling gas powered chain saws may be a major stretch. Now, if you considered selling solar powered chain saws that only cut down sick trees...well, that is different...

So, when you are looking for another business opportunity, it is important to identify your personal values and what identity you want to portray. Once you are certain of your value system and what you want your business identity to basically be (understanding that over time, you will most likely be modifying both as the business develops) you can then find an income opportunity that is in line with what you believe in.

For instance, Hawgwash, LLC started purely as a Waterless Technology company. We cleaned vehicles without using water, which also helped the environment. We value our earth, and do not want to harm it. By using waterless technology products, we are not rinsing harsh chemicals back into the water table, and we are not wasting water by washing the vehicles. Clean water is becoming very hard to find, the resources are shrinking so anything we can do to reduce the wasting of good, clean drinking water is again good for the environment and for people. Our values are to not waste earth's precious resources, not to pollute and to help people. Our Waterless Technology products fit into this value system.

If you have questions about waterless technology products, please feel free to contact us at hawgwash1@yahoo.com. The waterless company, UltraLuster is a great second income opportunity that can be worked very part time, or can be turned into a full time, profitable business. If you are interested in the products for personal use, they can be found on our website.

Tomorrow we will discuss other business friendly marketing techniques. Until tomorrow...

Bike night at Arizona Joe's

Tonight was our weekly Bike Night at Arizona Joe's affectionately know as AJ's to the locals. We have been holding this Bike Night every Thursday night for the last 3+ years. It takes place in the covered patio of AJ's. Believe it or not, this Bike Night has been held all summer long, even through the hottest days. Granted, many people don't show up, but hey, the tradition continues.

Tonight, in order to make people laugh, Steve put on a pair of men's boxer shorts that were to be raffled off and stuck a paper towel roll in the shorts. He then walked around the patio with the ticket bucket hanging from the paper towel roll in the shorts. He had people laughing so hard they were crying. We had a lot of happy people tonight because we were being silly and trying to help people leave the reality of they day behind for an hour or two.

Our Bike Nights have been quite successful over the years, but we believe we need to change the pattern a bit. I believe shaking up things will be for the better. I noticed that we continue to get our regulars, but it would be nice to have something different to draw more people and to woo back some of the people that have grown bored with the status quo. Starting next week we are going to have our first Wet T-Shirt contest.

I have no idea who will be attending and who will be participating in the contest, but it definitely will cause a stir amongst the attendees at Bike Night. Until now, our bike nights consisted of raffles, bike shows and sing-alongs, which is not bad at all. It is time to jazz things up and make people start to laugh. This economy has been so hard on everyone, it is important to give people a little break from reality and have fun for a bit. I am not even going to discuss the average age of our attendees, I will be wrong no matter how you slice it, so it will be extremely interesting to see who will be willing to participate in the upcoming Wet T-shirt contest. I have already received requests from guys to be included, so that should be interesting. I know the first few times are going to be challenging, but hey, it will cause people to laugh...and trust me, it will be fun no matter what.

The week after the Wet T-Shirt contest will be our People's choice bike show. In this anyone can enter their motorcycle or trike, there are no classes and the attendees of bike night will get one ticket to vote for their favorite bike. The following weeks will include a Hot Buns contest, a motorcycle detailing clinic, a sing along with Greywolf, and a motorcycle trivia game. We have more ideas in the works, but this is what we are willing to disclose for now. If anyone out there has some ideas, I would love to find out what else we can do to spice up the bike nights.

If you are wondering why we hold this bike night, it is another form of marketing to your target audience. Every Thursday we always have a product table out, and are always willing to talk to people about our product offerings. What we have started doing with much success is changing what we put on our product table each week. We will not show the same product each week, so that way, each week we get to showcase different products. This keeps your table from getting boring. If the stores change their window displays frequently, we should change our table displays often.

This is a soft form of marketing, you always have product out for people to look at, you answer questions, listen a lot, and just remain available for people. You then become a trusted information source for the attendees of the bike nights and people start looking forward to seeing you and what you will bring each week. This can also generate word of mouth advertising. Once people start expecting you and your products, and using your products, they will tell their friends who will attend the next bike night, and the ball gets rolling.

Bike nights do not need to be expensive affairs, the cost of advertising doesn't have to be more than printing and placing flyers around the local community. There is a huge return on investment on that small expenditure for printed materials and raffle prizes. This type of advertising pays dividends down the road. You have fun, the attendees have fun, and you are remembered as being fun and not just another salesperson with a business you are trying to promote.

Again, please forward any additional Bike Night ideas to hawgwash1@yahoo.com. Thanks so much for continuing to read our blog.

Until tomorrow...

How to tell people you are in business for yourself

I am working on keeping these daily blogs shorter so that you do not spend too long reading each day. In order to do that, I will have to spread the discussion over several days. So here it goes...

I have struggled with the question about how to tell people I am in business for the whole time I have been in business for myself. Short of wearing a billboard all the time, you want to let people know you are in business, but you don't want to be a pest about it either. The big question is how to tell them without being a pain.

The best way I have figured out so far is to open a general conversation with the person, do not start with a specific agenda. You can be standing in line at the grocery store and you both see something worth commenting on. I always have trouble starting conversations (yes, really I do) and have to psych myself into opening a conversation with a complete stranger. With practice it does get marginally easier, but you always have to work at it (at least I do).

Once you start the conversation, let it move naturally and watch for an opportunity. The best way to have a constructive conversation is to listen to the other person more than you talk. When you start listening to them, they begin to trust you and are willing to open up to you more. When you have gained some of their trust, you can start asking questions. Just be sensitive to the time you spend talking, the other person may really have something else that must be done. In today's society, we all have a lot to do in a very short period of time.

(If you start up a conversation with a stranger, only answer your cell phone if it is an EXTREMELY urgent call. If you pick up that phone while talking to the stranger and you do not excuse yourself, you just let the other person know that their time was not very important to you. You need to make sure the other person knows that you value their time and opinion, so be careful when and if you answer the ringing cell phone.)

Once you have started an open dialog, you can then ask the other person what they do for a living. They will usually talk a bit about what they are doing, or not doing and whether they are happy doing their job. The next natural question from them is to reciprocate and ask you what you do for a living. Now, if you had been listening to the person up until now, you are in an excellent position to talk about what you do and to tailor it to the current person's needs (if applicable). Do not push your business, treat it casually, but do not talk it down and you may be very surprised how receptive the other person may be to finding out more about what you do.

If you find you are both short on time, you may want to exchange e-mail addresses and/or phone numbers if the other person is remotely interested in what you do for a business. Do not take a lot of their time talking about your business if you are both pressed for time. The most effective route is to exchange information and set at time to contact them when it is convenient to both of you. The other person will appreciate your sensitivity to their time constraints, and you will find you get more qualified people to talk to.

I will continue this thread in the next day or so... until tomorrow...

If you are interested in finding a business opportunity that may meet your needs, please visit www.hawgwash.net or feel free to contact me through e-mail or in comments to this blog posting.

Marketing and Personal Development

I have just finished spending a large portion of the day learning how to better market myself and the services we offer. I am learning how to focus my ideas better and to make them more relevant for everyone else.

What I have discovered is that my brain doesn't always work in a straight line. What may make sense to me will not make any sense to anyone else. We have some down-time before our next show (we are still traveling, but we don't have to work a booth) so I am working fervently to improve what I do and how I do it.

In my efforts to improve, we have revised the Hawgwash, LLC basic premise. We no longer only specialize in Waterless Technology. That was our main thrust for several years. We have expanded our product offerings since then. It did not hit home with me until I talked with someone who went to our website (http://www.hawgwash.biz/) and commented that it looked like we offered a little bit of everything with no rhyme or reason.

That comment got me thinking, what are we really trying to do? Are we a Waterless Car Wash company that offers different products, not related to waterless wash? Looking back at the website, it is very easy to see why this gentleman was confused...I was confused.

I know our main goal has always been to help others: people want to save water, earth's most precious resource; people want to stay healthy - either lose weight or maintain their current weight, or to improve their immune system. Some people are in dire need of some form of Legal representation, guidance, advice or even Identity Theft Protection. We saw a need for all of these services, but at first glance, they all seem unrelated except for the fact that we wanted to help people. (not a very efficient marketing plan)

Then we came upon the common thread, we have become Second Income Consultants. In all of the items I noted above, the common factor is that these companies not only assist people in their immediate needs, but they can help those same people to add another income stream to their household. Boy, did that feel good to finally find the thread that held it all together.

This may not sound too much like personal development to some, but actually, if you don't have a clear direction, how can you possibly begin to move forward. We now have crystallized our focus (through this version of personal development) and are striving to move forward even faster.

I have finally gotten the other blog up and running. "About Hawgwash" is now on-line and the third (actually first real posting) blog is posted related to Why a second income?. Please also check out http://www.hawgwash.wordpress.com/ and feel free to comment. The articles I plan on placing in WordPress will have more of a business orientation. Sooo, for those of you that do not enjoy my ramblings about travel, shows, and weight loss, you now have a place to go to be more serious minded. I will occasionally post fun articles over there, but will reserve my real silliness for this blog.

If you want to see what I have done to tweak our website, please visit http://www.hawgwash.biz/. This will be an ongoing adjustment for the next month and a half (I hope) until I can refine the site to be more relevant and helpful to people.

Take care and see you tomorrow.