Working With Small Business Leaders to Increase Profits
Business Tools I Use
There are a couple of valuable business tools that I use in my business. They are both part of my marketing follow up plan. Part of the Bizology.Biz teaches a ten step follow up plan and both of these tools fit nicely into that strategy. One thing that i have noticed is that many businesses that I meet have no effective marketing plan for follow-up. It is really amazing. You spend money to go to networking events or trade shows or expos and then there is no follow-up. The follow-up takes many, many steps. So, let me tell you about these two tools:
- First, is Send Out Cards. (yes, I am a distributor) AND, the reason is that it is a good fit for my business AND for many of my clients. Sending cards to people after you have met them is a nice personal touch. It is better than an email, but I actually do both. I have set up a campaign within SendOutCards that allows me to send a person a set of cards that go out automatically over time to them. Occasionally, someone will call and thank me for the card. I, right away, say — “oh sure, you are welcome”, but really I am not totally sure what card they are talking about as the campaign is automatic and it might have started a month or two earlier. But, what I know is that suddenly this automatic marketing tool has given me a chance to have a conversation.
- There are additional features within SendOutCards that I love. I am able to set up reminders — I have my entire family in the database and their birthdays. There is no reason that I still miss birthdays!! They even send an email reminder that I have a reminder!
- I can also attach gifts to a card. There are several great books that can be included, great gourmet food, gifts of tea, and other baskets. From small to large. Again, I just add the gift but never touch the gift or card. The brownies we actually had to order ourselves because everyone we sent them to said they were incredible, and they were!!
- I also am able to use their photo upload to create postcards
- The second is called Talk Fusion. Now, part of Talk Fusion fits well into my marketing plan of follow up. I often use their video marketing to send a follow up video email to a prospect. The email is branded to my company, and the video is usually personal to the individual. But, Talk Fusion also has several other tools that I can use that are good for my business. These include:
- video newsletters,
- video conferencing (webinars),
- video blogging and
- video social networking.
Previous to using Talk Fusion’s platform I was using several other services that were costing me nearly $200 per month. I use Talk Fusion because the cost to my company is just $35 per month AND it has the ability to be another stream of revenue for my business. I share the tools with other business owners that I think could benefit from them and continue to focus on coaching and leadership development as the main parts of my own business.
There are several things that I like about Talk Fusion. I love the email videos. When I send a video out to someone I know who watched and who didn’t. I receive and email when the video is watched. The video conferencing is nice as I can use it with video conferencing features and bring everyone on the call onto the screen which is pretty cool or I can share a powerpoint or my desktop or a video. Many of the Webinar services don’t support showing videos during the webinar. Talk Fusion’s platform has its own imperfections but I see the staff of Talk Fusion working to make it a great product and updating it all the time.
When you look at your business, you have to decide what tools you can use that will really augment your business strategies. Both of these tools bring valuable marketing resource to your company and both have the unique ability to create another stream of revenue. Not interested in adding them as a part of your business revenue? Then use them solely for your business marketing.
