Betsie Melter's Real Estate Blog: March 2010

As Real Estate professionals, we are busy and time is precious to us.  Our phone is our life line.  Have you ever answered only to speak to a telemarketer and while you are trying to get off the phone, someone important beeps in and you miss them?  How aggravating is that???

 

 

Even with the Do Not Call list  occasionally I still get those annoying calls from marketers trying to sell me something....Here are some tips to help eliminate those, I can't wait to try some of these methods out!

 

Tips for Handling Telemarketers   Three Little Words That Work !!

  (1)The three little words are: 'Hold On, Please...'
  Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

   Then when you eventually hear the phone company's 'beep-beep-beep' tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

   These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.  

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?
 
   This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when  a person answers the phone.
     
   This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a 'real' sales person to call back and get someone at home.

   What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!! 

Junk Mail Help:
   When you get 'ads' enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these 'ads' with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away.
 
   When you get those 'pre-approved' letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.
 
   Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 41 cents postage 'IF' and when they receive them back..

   It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes.
 
   One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas.
   Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
   If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them.

   You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 41 cents.

   The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
 
   Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again You get the idea !
 
  If enough people follow these tips,  I bet it will work ----

Gotta go I hear the mailman outside, time to go check my box for some JUNK!!

 

 

This article is written for CPA's but aplicable for any business.

Authour - Rick Telberg http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2010/CPA/Mar/6WaysSaveClient.jsp

Six Ways to Save a Client Today

Local accounting firm redefines "R&D" for client retention and business development. How to keep clients happy and build your business. March 15, 2010 by Rick Telberg/At Large At most companies, “R&D” means “research and development.” But at Dugan & Lopatka CPAs in Wheaton, Ill., every staffer knows it means client “retention and development,” as in business development.

Like many firms faced a couple years ago with the credit crash and ensuing Great Recession, Dugan & Lopatka’s attention was wrenched from landing new clients to serving the clients they already had. “We started a renewed focus on client retention and business development,” according to Managing Principal Jerry Lopatka, who dropped me a line in response to “Do You Know the Secrets of Happy Clients?”

Dugan & Lopatka has 45 people, including nine principals. It specializes in the usual small- and medium-size business lines — manufacturing, distribution, real estate and construction. This tax season, they’ll probably do about 750 returns. Today, what the firm abbreviates as “Biz R&D” “is a daily focus for all of us,” Lopatka says.

The firm’s “Biz R&D” program contains six building blocks, which may be intuitive for many and familiar to anyone who has studied relationship marketing or consultative selling:

1. Going the extra mile on the current engagement. * Conducting extra analysis using business-intelligence tools like BizBench. * Bring the project in earlier than promised. * Or hand-deliver reports and discuss in person.

2. Increasing the amount of client contact (see related story.) * Visit at every opportunity. * Schedule business meetings near mealtimes to grab some extra quality time over a nice meal. * Invite the client into the firm’s office.

3. Building the business relationship. * Help the client network with your other clients. * Offer free seminars for the client’s staff. * Refer new business to the client.

4. Building the personal relationship. * Understand their goals in life and business. * Get hard-to-find tickets to big games or shows. * Remember birthdays and anniversaries.

5. Increasing knowledge of the client’s industry. * Read the same trade journals they do. * Learn all you can about their competitors. * Join them at trade shows.

6. Increasing knowledge of the client’s company. * Spend time with the junior managers. * Understand the company’s power structure. * Meet the boss.

Of course, the firm’s leadership knows that the “R&D” plan would mean nothing without support from the staff. So they launched it at a firm-wide meeting, tied it into training consultant Troy Waugh’s Five Star Client Service Model, available, by the way, through the AICPA’s PCPS division. On top of that, Lopatka nudges them with an early-morning daily e-mail. By the time you read this, the firm may be posting those notes on a blog, open to clients and prospects. Check their Web site. Is all the effort worth it?

What’s the return on investment (ROI), every CPA asks. “I can’t quantify it,” Lopatka admits. “But I’m afraid what to think if we didn’t have the program.” “We try, but we can always do better,” he says. “As I often tell our employees — our good clients are on our competitor’s radar screen.” Let that be fair warning to Dugan & Lopatka’s competitors, as well.