RESOURCE CENTRE

Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 12 April 2006

In this week's issue:

• How to improve your sales response rate
• Compiling a list of media contacts
• Coping with a raw deal from small traders
• Podcasting and your business
• The Royal Mail website reviewed

Small business answers

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Weekly stir

How to improve your sales response rate

In general people don't buy "things", they buy opportunities. They don't buy things like electronic gadgets, cars, holidays or office equipment based on their material or face value.

They buy opportunities and offers that they can't resist like special discounts, long-term finance options, bonus upgrades, and simple payment terms.

The key to selling any product or service is to create an irresistible offer that your prospect will find it difficult to refuse, where they think "I would be plain stupid to say no to this".

To learn how to create irresistible offers, it's important to understand why people respond to them. Once you understand this formula, it will become a lot easier for you to create that compelling offer where your prospect won't be able to say "no".

This is about understanding the risk-reward conversion that takes place in the mind of your prospect when they are considering your offer. They will be trying to work out whether the promised reward of buying from you is greater than the required risk. If it is, they will usually buy. If it's not then they almost certainly won't.

You can look at this even closer by breaking it down into two basic factors:

• The perceived value of the offer (what your prospect will get)

• The perceived risk involved (what your prospect has to give)

You can simply express this relationship as:

Response rate = perceived value/risk

If the perceived value of your offer goes up and the risk stays the same, your response rate will increase. If the perceived risk goes up and your perceived value stays the same, your response rate will go down.

However, if your perceived value went up and the perceived risk went down, imagine what would happen to your response rate. It would skyrocket.

Which is exactly what creating an irresistible offer is all about. You need to increase the perceived value and reduce the risk to your prospect.

So now let's look at a few ideas that will help you increase the value and decrease the risk of your offer.

Increasing the perceived value

• Add free bonus items to your offer such as accessories or third party add-ons

• Offer two or three products or services for the price of one

• Bundle complementary products together for a lower price than if they were purchased separately

• Provide detailed information about the specific benefits your service offers, its exceptional quality, how long it will last, and so on

• Explain how your service is genuinely unique and highlight the specific advantages it holds over competitive products or services

Decreasing the perceived risk

• Provide the strongest and longest guarantee possible

• Provide a free or low-cost extended warranty

• Make a try-it-before-you-buy-it offer

• Provide low, affordable extended payment terms

• Delay first payment with no accrued interest

• Give access to high quality ongoing help and support after the sale

• Give genuine proof of results of your product or service using testimonials and case studies

Using one or a combination of these elements in your offer will increase your response rate. The more elements you use to increase the benefits and decrease the risk, the higher the response rate you'll enjoy.

You can find hundreds more practical marketing ideas, techniques, and strategies that will help you find more customers and increase your sales in the UK Small Business Marketing Bible.

PR tip

Compiling a list of media contacts

One way to attract free publicity for your small business is by getting your news releases published, either in local papers or on web-based press release wires. Building a list of local, national and online media contacts and resources will provide you with a simple reference tool that you can use every time you write a news release.

Regularly updated media directories are a good starting point, as they can provide details of useful contacts, including specific names, direct telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Some of the best-known media directories include:

• Willings Press Guide

• Guardian Media Directory

• Benns Media Directory

• PR Newswire

You could also consider the following:

• Intellagencia lists advertising opportunities in UK media publications and broadcast outlets.

• The Media Guide publishes a range of downloadable press lists for print and broadcast media.

• HoldtheFrontPage has a 'Who's who?' of UK journalists, as well as listing newspaper websites.

• PR Web enables any organisation to get its press releases published on the Internet. It is free to submit a release, and published news is categorised by sector, by country and by date.

• Pressbox offers a free news release distribution service. Once submitted, your news release is made available to editors and journalists searching the web for relevant news.

You can find a directory of the UK's newspapers and magazines at Media UK, and a list of trade publications (which can be good places to submit niche or sector-specific news releases) at TradePub.com.

Legal tip

Coping with a raw deal from small traders

If things go wrong with a big supplier or customer, there's a strong chance that you can handle the dispute without your own business suffering too much.

Dealing with small businesses such as sole traders or partnerships can be trickier. It's more difficult checking out their financial background, and chasing money from individuals can be time-consuming and expensive.

But before thinking about solicitors and courts, it's worth finding out if two other organisations can help first:

• Your local Trading Standards department, which is operated by your local authority, can investigate complaints about a range of issues, including standards of workmanship and late payment.

• The Citizen's Advice Bureau (CAB), which has a network of offices around the country, may be able to advise on what the law says about your particular case.

Don't expect too much from these organisations - they won't be able to help with contractual disputes, for example. But they can sometimes resolve complaints surprisingly quickly and will be able to point you in the right direction for getting further advice.

IT tip

Podcasting and your business

Podcasting - providing audio downloads that listeners can listen to immediately or save for later - has moved into the mainstream, and it is another low cost way for businesses to promote themselves and stay in touch with existing customers.

You can use podcasting in numerous ways:

• To offer information about new products or developments within your business

• To provide how-to instructions or tips about getting the most out of your products or services

• To give a commentary on current affairs affecting your market or industry

Podcasting can also be an effective way of getting people to come back to your website regularly. Provide an interesting, amusing, or controversial set of downloads and you could even find yourself building up a loyal little fan base.

With a bit of practice, it's a simple process. As well as a PC, you will need:

• a good microphone. You don't need to spend a fortune on a PC microphone, but using one designed specifically for voice will improve the sound quality of your files;

• recording software. Windows provides a very basic "Sound Recorder", but the additional functions offered by other providers are likely to be useful. PC Magazine offers reviews of all types of audio software;

• somewhere to put your audio files where people can download them. Ideally, this will be your own website.

To find out more, check out this excellent Beginner's guide to podcasts and podcasting, which is ideal for the non-technical reader.

New business idea

Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK.

Here is this week's idea:

• Mobile Cocktail Bar

Just one word

Regularly improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.

Do you know what the word 'affidavit' means?

a) a complaint about a customer's criminal behaviour
b) exemption from a particular regulation
c) a piece of evidence in a fraud case
d) a sworn statement made in writing

Answer at the end of the Bulletin.

Website review

Royal Mail (www.royalmail.com/portal/sme/home)

Royal Mail has a site dedicated to small businesses, providing information and advice about mail-related issues for small firms. But how user-friendly and accessible is the site?

• Navigation and presentation - the sheer amount of information included on the homepage is overwhelming, and space could be put to better use to make the various sections more easily navigable. Lists of options appear crammed in, and ads are given too much space - however, the drop-down list of options for navigating to different pages of the site is useful.

• Accessibility - a Welsh language option and accessibility options are clearly listed on the homepage. However, the options themselves are fairly limited for users with disabilities - the accessibility page acknowledges the issues and says it is working towards minimum standards, but no alt tags, text-only options or audio coverage is currently available.

• Content and usefulness - the how-to information and guidance provided in the FAQs and drop-down lists on this site are well-written and helpful, covering everything from how to send mail overseas to how to reduce postage costs. There are also specific guides on small business issues such as working more efficiently, and the site occasionally features seasonal advice - for example, for retailers in the run-up to Christmas.

• Relevance - topical and relevant news articles and case studies are listed on the homepage, which additionally features up-to-date information about key postage issues such as price rises. You can even follow a link to Royal Mail's general press releases database, which is helpfully categorised by sector.

There are some practical and useful resources here for small firms, making this a good research tool that is definitely worth bookmarking.

Did you know?

EU plans to make mobile phone providers cut international charges

The European Union (EU) has announced plans for a law which will force the mobile phone providers to cut their call charges for roaming in member states. The EU has also been trying to make prices more transparent by providing a website showing the roaming charges for each of the main providers. The International roaming tariffs site allows you to search by provider or by country to find the best deals.

Worth a visit

Quick reference site for business

Simply-info is designed as a "gateway to the Internet" bringing together some of the "best" sites containing news and information for business. As well as news stories, it offers a range of other services, including a listing of online shops, a forum and live radio news bulletins. Visitors can choose between various international versions, and will find the site a useful quick reference source for finance, retail and technology information.

Free surgeries and information for directors

The Directors Centre aims to help owner-managers of small businesses solve their pressing problems, through the provision of free surgeries, health check tools, seminars and advice. The service is free for a trial period, as are the free surgery sessions that run around the UK and aim to provide users with an opportunity to discuss a particular business problem.

Worth a read

Far from the sweetness and light of many books on decision-making, this somewhat controversial guide takes a hyper-practical approach, portraying the course of your business and life as a "war". Like Machiavelli before him Robert Greene recommends how to win by learning from the past, and not caring too much about who loses. A strategy book with a difference. Check out:

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Good luck

The EnterQuest Team

This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought where appropriate.