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Engage Your Social Media Audience with These Simple Tips

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Engage Your Social Media Audience with These Simple Tips

How to engage with your audience using social media.

Engagement is good for most marketing campaigns. We spend countless hours, dollars, and other resources researching and creating out content, but all that effort is for nothing if we’re not engaging anyone. We want our audience to reach our content and find out how we can help. To help you actually engage with your social media followers, check out these tried-and-tested tips.

Personalize Your Social Experience

Throughout your social postings on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, ensure that each space speaks to a different persona. Twitter is great for casual interactions, Facebook is a great consumer market, and LinkedIn thrives in the business-scape. When you understand each social media platform’s experience, it’s clear that content built for a space like Instagram won’t perform as well somewhere like LinkedIn.

Reply to Comments

A great way to spark engagement is to reply to comments on your business’s posts. Whether it’s a simple ‘Thank you!’ or a question that asks the individual about their experience, find unique and fun ways to get talking! If your audience feels like they’re being heard, they’re more likely to keep an eye out for your future posts.

Be Consistent

Despite where you choose to build your next great social empire, remember that consistency is essential to sustained social engagement. Posting regularly creates a relationship with your audience, and irregular content strains that engagement. Keep content consistent and relevant.

To learn more about how to be successful in your business, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. We can offer guidance, helping you perfect your professional posture. We also offer a premier wealth creation program that helps you to work less, earn more, and enjoy life.

Easy Ways to Earn More Referrals

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Simple Steps to Get More Referrals 

It’s a common feeling for business owners to feel like they’re bothering clients when they ask for a referral. More often than not, customers will happily leave a nice review if they feel they’ve had particularly good service. However, it isn’t always high on their list of things to do. So that your business can get the referrals it needs and deserves, check out these tips to earn more referrals.

Change your attitude about referrals. Stop telling yourself that you’re asking for referrals. Instead, think of it as benefitting your business and caring about customers. In fact, you could be saving your clients’ friends thousands of dollars. Changing your mindset towards referrals will help you to ask for them!

Hand out referral cards. Make up cards with your logo, agency contact information, and a spot that says ‘Referred by _____’. Handwrite your client’s name in the blank space and give it to them to pass along. You could either send these out in the post or hand them to your client when you see them so that they can immediately put them in their wallet or purse.

Practice your referral talkpaths. It’s well worth rehearsing that you’d like to say to clients thinking of referring your business. After all, just a few sentences or a good thought can help to spread the word about your services.

Add a recommend-a-friend functionality on your website. This strategy continues to be effective time and time again. Have a page or box somewhere on your website that allows people to send an email to a friend recommending your agency.

Include it in your email signature. Your email signature is a block of text that automatically shows up at the bottom of your emails. Most businesses have their name, contact information, and maybe a link to their website. This place is a great opportunity to request a referral because it’s not a direct email asking a client, but it does allow the reader to quickly forward on your contact information to friends and family.

Thank referrers on your Facebook page. When you receive customer referrals, go out to your social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and thank the people who have provided referrals out in the open for everyone to see. Not only does this show the referrer how much you appreciate their gesture, which should get you more referrals from them, but it shows everyone else how you appreciate referrals, encouraging others to leave you one!

To learn more about how to be successful, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. We can offer guidance, helping you perfect your professional posture. We also offer a premier wealth creation program that helps you to work less, earn more, and enjoy life.

Easy Tips to Watch Your Money

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Easy Tips to Watch Your Money

We are so quick to say in our businesses that we are here to “serve our customers,” but at the end of the day, we are also all in business because we need to earn money. One of my favorite quotes from Earl Nightingale’s inspirational book, The Strangest Secret, is, “The only people who make money work in the mint. The rest of us have to earn it.” We all have to earn the money; it’s what we do with that money after we earn it that defines our level of financial security and, ultimately, the amount of freedom we enjoy in our lives and in our businesses.

Thanks to the Internet and mobile banking, our financial picture is at our fingertips at all times. I love the fact that I can log into my business accounts at any moment and find out exactly where I stand financially. Looking at your balances is important, but it’s about more than just checking in on the amount. I look at my bank accounts every single day for the following reasons:

  • I need to know what I have so that I can handle my financial responsibilities accordingly and pay bills responsibly.
  • I want to learn what should be there so that if something is missing, I will know right away.
  • It’s my responsibility to handle my money—there is no one who is more responsible for my financial picture than I am, so I have to know what’s happening day in and day out.
  • By looking at my balances every single day, it creates a habit that is similar to daily reading my goals. It reminds me of where I am and where I want to be.

It’s like riding a bike—the more often you do it, the easier it gets every time you put your feet on the pedals. The more often you manage your financials, the more you strive to understand exactly what every line on the balance sheet means, the better you will become at handling your money and making every dollar count. It really is that simple, but you first have to identify how the process works by immersing yourself in it daily.

When I work with business professionals across the country, I always ask, “When was the last time you did a deep analysis of your financials, profit and loss statement, and your balance sheet?” The vast majority of the time, the response I hear is, “I don’t remember.” That amazes me. It’s your business—and it’s your money. If you don’t care about it, I guarantee someone else will gladly take it off your hands. The people who say, “I don’t remember,” are also often the same people who tell me they can’t afford a personal assistant. Does anyone see the correlation here?

You need to be taking a look at your financial situation on a daily basis. I also review my financials in-depth at the end of every month to understand exactly where we are, both as a business and as an individual. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” There is simply no way to reach as high as you want to reach in business without making sure you have the clearest view of your financial picture.

Establishing a great online presence is a must for each business. To get the full roadmap, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. Our premier wealth creation program helps you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Does Your Business Use Client Service Report Cards?

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Does Your Business Use Client Service Report Cards?

 

Information noted on a client report card tells you just what you need to do to improve your business.  

In our agency, we monitor all service satisfaction activity on a consistent basis. One of the greatest monitoring tools we developed is what we affectionately call the client service report card. The client service report card is a document that we send out to our customers to assess their level of satisfaction with the entire process. We don’t wait for problems or issues to surface. We pursue both the positive and the negative.

The card is a simple 4×8 sheet that is printed on orange card stock and addressed to our business. On one side, we have our BRM (business reply mail), which is a permit that we purchase once a year. You’ve seen such cards in the mail—they are the ones that say, “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States.”

On the card, we ask a series of questions to determine their level of satisfaction in working with us and receiving their claim. We ask questions like:

  • How satisfied are you with the service you received from us?
  • How would you rank our protection team’s knowledge and expertise?
  • How would you rank the overall level of helpfulness?
  • Please briefly tell us what you like or don’t like about the service you received.

These questions all lead up to the final question, which is, “May we share this information with potential clients who inquire about our services – Yes or No.” We send these cards out in practically every single mailing that leaves our agency. If people want to answer the questions, all they have to do is complete the report card, drop it in the mailbox, and it comes back to us. The only time we pay for it is when it comes back.

Those reports bring great feedback, a lot of which become powerful testimonials.

Things also come back to us concerning ways to improve our team. That is why we read these cards during our team meetings: To become better at what we do. If you don’t know what you are doing right and what areas need work, how do you know how to grow and improve? Don’t wait for your bank account balance—or lack thereof—be your indicator of customer satisfaction. That report card has meant so much to our business over the years, and I encourage you to add a client service report card to your arsenal.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program for a premier wealth creation program that will help you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Aiming for 100% of the Marketplace

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Is your business aiming for 100 percent of the marketplace?

Let’s begin by discussing your ideal marketplace. There is a goal I have in my business—I want to reach 100 percent of the marketplace. Does this mean that I cast the widest net possible in order to increase my odds? No, what it means is simply this: No matter how broad or niched your market may be, there is never a time when you should limit the ways you reach out to your potential customers and current customers. You must constantly strive to reach 100 percent of the marketplace using 100 percent of the ways available to you. This is one of the most important, overriding mentalities that must be present in any business.

Because of this program, I get to talk to a lot of people during the course of a week. When I ask them to explain their current marketing program to me, I’ll often hear, “Well, we email people to try to earn new business opportunities.” I don’t know about you, but if you use one of the many email delivery systems available today, and you stop for a moment to take a measure of the people who actually open your marketing emails (a.k.a. your open rate), you probably won’t be happy with what you see. Email still works—but the rise of “spam” has made email less efficient as a primary promotion tool.

Due to overuse, email isn’t what it used to be, but even if it were still the powerful marketing tool that it once was ten to fifteen years ago, using one marketing strategy is a “horse with blinders on” approach to promoting your business. If you want to reach 100 percent of any marketplace, you have to be using 100 percent of the ways to reach that marketplace all of the time. Every marketplace is different, demographically, geographically, and beyond, so what might work in one market doesn’t necessarily work in another. As you might imagine, such a marketing approach is not easy; so as marketers, we are constantly testing and doing market research. What combination of mediums will yield the best results? You should be consistently using as many of these as possible:

  1. Phone. The phone is the one communication medium that is never going away, so don’t stop using the phone, ever. In fact, you should be using the phone to follow up with people who don’t respond to you when other forms of media were used. For example, pick up the phone and call a prospect who never responded to an email you sent last week. Voice broadcasts are included in phone communications.
  2. Email. Email seems to be the marketing tool of choice for many. It doesn’t take you out of your comfort zone by having to call someone, and it’s very cost-effective. But because of those reasons, it’s also grossly overused. So, use it, but only in combination with other mediums.
  3. Snail Mail. With the right target list, direct mail campaigns can yield some great results.
  4. Fax. Although fax machines will eventually end up with the same fate as Blockbuster Video, some people still use fax. In fact, because email has largely replaced fax when it comes to advertising, it can still be an effective promotional medium for your business.
  5. Texting. Sending auto texts to customers about new promotions or events is a great way to utilize SMS to reach potential customers or current ones.
  6. Videos. You should have your own YouTube Channel, send videos via email, place videos on your website, on TV, and anywhere else where they might be seen.
  7. Social Media. All forms of social media should be utilized, from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, to LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and Yelp.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program for a premier wealth creation program that will help you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Does Your Business Need to Create a Mobile App?

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Does Your Business Need to Create a Mobile App?

As more and more people use their phones every minute of every day, it could be wise for your business to create a handy app.

In our digital age, people are seldom found without their smartphones. In fact, around half of web page visits are coming from mobile devices! That means you should either fine-tune your web page for mobile visitors, or consider creating a mobile app. Here are a few ways that having a mobile app for your business could offer you a boost.

  • Marketing: If you design an app that encourages its users to activate push notifications, you create another channel for you to put promotional opportunities, helpful information, and other marketing tactics at your customers’ fingertips. Simply having your icon on their phone helps you stay top-of-mind for your clients, and showing potential customers that you have a mobile app shows that your business is advancing with the modern age.
  • Networking: Not only does your mobile app create an opportunity for you to connect with your customers, but it also enables your customers to connect with one another. If you offer a social networking forum within your app, you can create an entire network into which you can invite prospective customers.
  • Service: If your customer downloads your app, it means he or she is very interested in your business. With an app, you not only keep him or her interested, but you also have a platform upon which you can build a relationship. Offer your customers specials and resources over your app and you make great service only a click away.

If you would like to talk to an expert about whether or not you should create a mobile app for your business, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. We are here alongside you and your business to help you realize success in our modern era.

Easy Ways to Manage Your LinkedIn Profile

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Easy Ways to Manage Your LinkedIn Profile

It’s not enough to simply have a LinkedIn profile – you must manage it, and manage it well. Overwhelmed? Don’t be. We’re here to help.

In our world of social media, LinkedIn stands as an interesting tool. With all the ease of networking online, you can connect with colleagues and competition to help improve your own professional profile and boost your business. Are you making the most of your LinkedIn? Here are a few tips to help you leverage this resource.

  • Perfect Your Profile: Whether you are looking to bring leads or recruit employees for your business with your LinkedIn, ensuring your profile is both accurate and interesting is key. Take the time to review your summary. Is it engaging? Does it shed light on the kind of work you do and why it matters? Take some time to spruce up and spice up your LinkedIn profile to ensure that when people navigate to your page, they are enticed.
  • Be Active with Articles: It is one thing to have a good profile on LinkedIn, but entirely another to be active on it. Post relevant articles for your industry, resources you have found helpful, inspirational quotes, etc. to ensure that you are actually contributing to the LinkedIn community and making your professional priorities clear.
  • Understand the Upgrades: Periodically, LinkedIn will send you an offer to try out an upgrade to a Premium account for 30 days. Take advantage of this free trial to play around with these extra features and see if they would benefit your business. That way, you will know which type of LinkedIn profile works best for your business without incurring an extra expense.

Want to know more about how you can leverage your online presence—including your LinkedIn profile—to boost your business? To get insight from the experts, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. We want to help guide you to success through our premier wealth creation program.

A Referral Program That Gives Back (an Excerpt from Mike’s Book)

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

An excerpt from Mike Stromsoe’s book:

In the early days of our referral program, we hadn’t figured out our strategy in full, but we knew that we needed to do something—and then turn that something into a permanent promotional process. So, we started by sending out a letter. Every time someone sent us a referral—whether or not that referral became a customer—we sent a thank you letter that included a lottery ticket. The letter would say something like, “Thank you for your referral. I really appreciate it. Because I was lucky enough to get your referral, here’s a lottery ticket. Good luck!”

 

A friend of mine who had referred a lot of business to me actually won some money from one of the tickets. I saw him at a weekly networking event after he had won, and he ran up to me and said, “Mike, guess what? I won $116 from the lottery ticket you sent me last week!”

 

That got me thinking all during the meeting, and afterwards, I asked him if I could take a picture with him holding up the lottery ticket. Underneath the picture I would add a caption like, “Jim won $116 by telling someone he knows about our agency.” With that photo and caption, we created a green flier (since green is the color of money) that explained to people how they could also win.

 

We started sending out those green fliers with everything we mailed—and I do mean everything. We sent them in bills and letters and notifications of all kinds. Pretty soon, our referrals started increasing. It felt magical. Once the referrals started coming in, we made sure we continued to recognize the people that were referring us business by creating letters (with the lottery tickets included)—and of course, we’d include another green flier with the lottery ticket to keep the momentum going.

 

That is how our referral system was born, and it has continued to consistently work for us. After we had that system in place for a while, we decided to do even more to stand out, and to improve the program. So, we started partnering with some of our other client business owners. We contacted a client who owned some pizza shops, and I told him, “I’d like to give away a pizza for every referral, and I’ll pay you $ for every pizza we give away.”

 

Without hesitation he replied, “That’d be great.”

 

What type of referral program can you start that could benefit not just your client but your community too?

Thank Your Clients Uniquely

Posted on by Mike Stromsoe

Thank Your Clients Uniquely

Sending a simple “thank you” can go a long way in creating a strong connection with your clients.

It’s incredible how far a “thank you” can take you when it comes to your clients. Customers spend more, and vendors are more likely to pay on time if they receive a regular thank you. But when it comes to showing your appreciation towards your clients for their business, it can be tough to find a balance between staying professional and creating a personal connection. Simply saying “thank you,” doesn’t feel like it’s enough, especially for those clients with whom you hold in high regard. Here are a few tips on how you can thank your clients in a unique fashion and hold professional integrity while creating a personal connection.

Send a Personalized Gift

Everyone loves getting gifts, and that includes your customers. If you want your “thank you” to be unique, make sure to think outside the box. Here are a few ideas you can use to spark some inspiration:

  • Coffee mug
  • Wine glasses
  • Beer mugs
  • Gift basket with favorite treats (e.g. brownies, fruit, et cetera)
  • Leather-bound journal
  • Bottle of their favorite wine or spirit

Write a Handwritten Note

There may be no better way to let your clients know how personal your “thank you” is other than writing a handwritten letter. It signals to them that you took time out of our day to foster this relationship. When crafting your letter, stay focused and be specific. Find a way to say how their business has influenced you and your business, and include details of the relationship you both have fostered. This personalized letter will make your message more meaningful and will increase their motivation to work with you again.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer for more tips on how you can strengthen your relationship with your best clients. Call 800-770-9984 today!

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