The Referral Network System Blog

Structures for Success Course Can Take Your Business to the Next Level

Lorenda Phillips, one of the best business coaches working in Los Angeles, has a few openings left for her year-long Structures for Success course, which begins in mid-January. If you know a professional or small business owner who needs to take their business to the next level,this might be the best Christmas (or other holiday) gift you can give them.

I highly recommend Structures for Success. I am just finishing the year-long course, and can tell you that Lorenda's course has helped me nearly double my revenues. The course consists of 4 quarterly all-day seminars, 12 monthly individual coaching sessions, and 12 monthly group coaching sessions, and deals with the structures you need to put in place to have a successful business, including how to:

Transform your passion into a solid business plan

Expand your entrepreneurial bandwidth

Attract your perfect clients

Sharpen your focus on strategic issues

Energize your business and your personal life.

She is hosting free introductions to the course on Monday, Jan. 9 and Tuesday, Jan. 17. The introductions include working on a business plan for 2006 that all participants can take with them to use this coming year.

You can call (310) 398-0398 if you would like more information on Structures for Success.

Denise Kotula

President, DK Strategic Consulting, Inc.

New Survey Shows Referrals Deliver Best R.O.I. for Small Businesses

A newly published survey of small business owners conducted by Marketing Best Practices.com shows that referral marketing provides the highest return on investment (ROI) for their marketing dollars of any marketing method.

Thirty-six (36) percent of respondents of the poll said referral marketing gave them the biggest return for their marketing dollar. The internet came in a very low second at 14%, while networking followed closely with 13% and direct mail was fourth with 12%.

The press release announcing results of the survey quotes small business marketing expert David Frey as saying "This poll demonstrates the importance of implementing referral systems. Most business comes from referrals, but only a few small businesses actually have referral programs in place."

Have You Heard "Conversations With Experts"?

Most professionals and entrepreneurs would agree that it is important to stay educated about the latest business and marketing tools. The problem is always how to find the time. But the free weekly tele-seminar "Conversations With Experts: How to Build Your Business On and Offline" makes educating yourself on a whole host of vital business topics as easy as picking up the phone.

The tele-seminars begin at 5:30 p.m. P.S.T. on Wednesdays and run for 60 - 70 minutes. To Listen in, all you have to do is register at the "Conversations With Experts" site. They will e-mail you the free call-in number.

The program is hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, who have helped hundreds of business professionals create marketing blogs through their e-book "Build a Better Blog System." Each week they feature a guest expert on a business-related topic. Recent guests have included Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com, who provided insights on growing businesses using Google; Martin Wales of 1shoppingcart.com, who spoke on how automated systems can increase revenues for websites; and Denise Kotula, host of this blog, who spoke about building business using the power of referrals.

Relationship V. Transaction, Part I: Why Creating a Lifetime Value From Clients Is Important

I had a conversation with an insurance salesman recently who told me that "Clients are a pain in the ass." He isn't interested in creating a relationship with his clients because he wants to be able to squeeze maximum profits from his clients and doesn't want to answer to them when they find out they're over-insured or that they've been overcharged.  He puts all his marketing dollars into prospecting for new clients using cold calls and internet marketing.

It's all about the transaction, baby.

But what he's failing to realize is that his clients are where the money is. He could literally double his revenues while actually reducing his marketing costs if he valued the client relationship more than the transaction.

Want proof that creating client loyalty is paramount to success? Consider this:

Marketing Messages Diluted by Multi-Tasking

We just ran across an ad by the Newspaper National Network (NNN) in this week's Adweek magazine (Nov. 14, 2005) that boasts results from a study that its says proves newspaper ads have a greater impact on purchase decisions than other media.

What we find most interesting, however, is that the results of the study actually seem to prove that the vast majority of people (at least those in the coveted 18 - 34 age group surveyed) aren't really focused on the media they're using. They're "doing other things," or "multi-tasking" while they read newspapers and magazines, listen to the radio, watch t.v. or access the internet. So we ask, "How much of those expensive marketing messages are actually getting through?"

The NNN 2005 Media Engagement Study regarding "the relative strengths of media in today's ever fragmenting media environment" reports that 29% of newspaper readers "mono-task" while reading the newspaper. What that actually means is that 71% of people are "multi-tasking (and we hope that doesn't mean they're reading the newspaper while driving).