Grow Your Business Exhibition

Grow Your Business by Understanding Your Customer: Free Presentation to Download

You'll find Anne Crotty of Pensare's presentation: Grow Your Business by Understanding Your Customer below.

Gain insights into how to use market research to aid your business: the questions to ask and what to do with the data you glean.

Download grow_exhibition_pres_v1.ppt

How to create websites that make you money: Free Presentation to Download

Bruce Hazleton of the Marvellous Media Company's popular seminar is available to download for free here.

Discover the key steps to creating a website that will start earning your business money.Download grow_your_business.pdf

Branding For Your Business: Free Workbook for You to Download

Lots of you have been asking for notes from some of the free seminars from last Wednesday's events. So over the next few days I will be posting workbooks and notes/ presentations from the speakers.

Today I've attached my own seminar workbook - Branding for Your Business. Use this to enable you to really get the most out of your business branding and use it to help your business grow.

You can find out more about Guildford printing.com by visiting our website www.guildfordprinting.com.
Download new_branding_workbook.pdf

Reputation: What's That? Free download from Tessa Hood

"I wish I'd known half of this stuff when I started out in business 30 years ago" was one of the comments an inspired convert made to me on her way out of Tessa Hood's seminar. Tessa, of Changing Gear ran a very lively and popular seminar on the importance of reputation and personal branding. Find out more in this free article.

Download when_youve_finished_changing_you_are_finished.doc

FREE Marketing Healthchecks from the CIM

Got a burning marketing question or dilemma? Need answers quickly?

Well expert help is on hand….

When you visit Grow your Business next week, drop by stand 151 and visit The Chartered Institute of Marketing for a free 1:2:1 marketing ‘health-check’ session.

Experienced Chartered Marketers will be there to help you with some practical marketing advice and ideas.

It’s FREE and there is no need to book. Just drop by the stand during the day and when an advisor is free, you can sit down and have a chat.

Get your marketing off to a flying start this Spring! Come and see us on stand 151!

Do you know it takes 7 times?

7 times to do what?

To get your neighbour to stop parking their car across your drive way?

To get a 5 year old to eat brussel sprouts? To get your partner to buy you flowers on your birthday?

No! On average, you have to communicate with a potential customer 7 times before they will buy something from you.

What! 7 times I hear you cry. If I want someone to buy something from me, I have to speak to them or send them something 7 times before they are willing to part with their hard-earned money?

Yup, that's right.

Now, obviously some people will buy on impulse and buy something or a service from you there and then.

But if the average figure is 7, that also means that it could take some people 20 times or more before they are willing to trust you enough to buy from you.

Think about your own buying habits. You are watching Ugly Betty on a Friday night and an advert comes on for a new moisturiser. You open the magazine supplements on a Sunday morning and there is a full colour page advert for that same moisturiser and you kind of recognise it but you are not sure where from.

On Monday you are chatting away to a girlfriend who mentions that she has recently bought this amazing new moisturiser. And so it goes it on until you find yourself at Boots on the high street and you are standing opposite a big display stand promoting that very same moisturiser.

What the hell, you think and you throw it in to your shopping basket.

If you hadn't had seen the TV advert, glanced at the newspaper or heard your friend raving about the product, there would have been every chance you would have walked straight past that promo stand.

If you are running your own business, there is a very high probability that you do not have the budget to advertise during Ugly Betty nor take out a full colour ad in the Sunday Times Style magazine.

But you can create a buzz and get people talking about you and what your business offers.
Communicating with a potential customer doesn't always have to be about advertising (although it can certainly help if you target the right publications) and as a small business, probably on a budget, there are dozens and dozens of ways of communicating with your potential customers.

From speaking at local events to contributing on online discussion forums. From sending people Christmas cards to forwarding them interesting and relevant emails. From talking to people at networking events to phoning someone up to ask their opinion on something.

Communication opportunities are open to you each and every day. And if you think it can take, on average, 7 times of communicating with someone before they are willing to buy from you, isn't it worth being conscious on how you can improve your communication opportunities?

One of the most effective and cheapest way of ensuring you are communicating 7 times is publishing your own email newsletter.

Karen Skidmore runs CanDoCanBe.com which helps women build successful (and profitable!) home based businesses. She'll be speaking on Email Newsletters Made Easy at the Grow Your Business Event on 30th April.

Email Newsletters - Get Personal

It may be tempting when you run a business from home to “pretend” to be bigger than you actually are. You may not want your customers to know that you work from the kitchen table and sort out your washing between answering emails.

However, when building relationships with potential customers, especially building relationships online, the more personal you make your email newsletters, the better.

You don’t need to share your stories about how drunk you got at your cousin’s wedding last weekend or how your daughter has just been awarded a prize for her mathematical ability. But when you write your articles and “talk” to your subscribers, show your personality.

Be fun, be creative, be serious. You decide – it’s your personality. By showing your personality you will be more likely to open up the doors of communication and start to build relationships with the types of customers you want to work with.

Make it personal. After all it is your business.

Karen Skidmore runs CanDoCanBe.com which helps women build successful (and profitable!) home based businesses. She'll be speaking on Email Newsletters Made Easy at the Grow Your Business Event on 30th April.

Registrations are now open for the Grow Your Business Event

What will you do to ensure that this year is even more successful than last? Why not resolve to spend just one day at the Grow Your Business Event - packed with free seminars, business clinics and interactive workshops to help you grow your business this year.

Registration is now open and seminar places are strictly limited. Don't miss out! Make sure you register today for the seminars of your choice. To find out more visit www.growguildford.co.uk

Branding for your business - seminar confirmed

How can you be sure that your business image will do you justice? Join branding expert Fiona Humberstone, from printing.com Guilford for a practical workshop to ensure your business sends out the right signals. Learn how to identify the message you’d like your business to project, how effectively it’s doing that at the moment and take away some practical tips to improve your business branding today.

Tessa Hood speaks on Personal Branding and Reputation management

Current research shows that the majority of CEOs believe that 50% of their incoming executives don’t have the interpersonal skills necessary to develop understanding, rapport and ultimate sales with potential clients.

Tessa believes a huge impact on business can be achieved by optimising company performance by using strategic intention to develop overall improved Personal Branding and a great reputation.

Once a company engages with the philosophy of improving the individual’s branding the improvement in the organisation cannot be understated.

Join us on 30th April for a FREE seminar on the importance of Personal Branding. To find out more visit >www.growguildford.co.uk