"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else"~Yogi Berra

Last week my team and I met in Saint Louis, MO, to discuss our company’s vision.  Sincestarting the company seven years ago, my vision for its future, including our insurance offerings and technology,  have a changed along the way.

We started out by a brainstorming session.  The first step was to establish what we wanted Relocation Insurance to look like in five years’ time.  The team had a good idea of what we wanted to see happen for the company but no map of how to get there.

The next  step was determining the critical success factors (CSFs) needed for our vision to become a reality.  In discovering our CSFs, everyone had input on what was important. This created a sense of ownership in the company’s vision. 

We then focused on the goals and strategies related to our CSFs.  The team was able to develop clear goals, strategies, and action items to achieve our goals. 

Our final step in the process will be to create  a project plan for each goal and tracking our efforts.   I wanted to share a section of our company vision:

•  Expand our line of relocation insurance programs
•  Ensure our employees are the most knowledgeable in their fields
• Develop a robust  management system allowing us to effectively manage our Relocation Insurance programs

The map and our game plan will be the essential ingredients needed for our vision to come to fruition. 

Do you and your staff go through a periodic brainstorming process to update your company’s vision?  Is your company’s vision in line with its current goals? How does your vision relate to ours? Similar or completely different?   Please share your thoughts with us.

Easy Tips To Cut Costs and Increase Sales

The slow season is here; it’s time to focus on cutting costs and finding new revenue sources.  Does your company’s bottom line need a boost? Here are some cost-effective sales boosters.

1.      

Ti  Tip 1:  Great Customer Service Can Increase Sales:  The saying goes, “A satisfied customer tells three friends; an angry customer tells 3,000.”  The inception of consumer review social media sites such as Angie’s List and Kudzu make it easy for customers to tell everyone in cyberspace about their experience with the company.  Don’t let a negative review hurt sales.  Respond quickly to complaints and thank customers for praise.

Customer service should not end with the sales or phone representatives.  Make it a companywide initiative. Empower the sales and customer service team to respond quickly and efficiently. After the sale, send a personalized “thank you” note to customers to leave a positive lasting impression.

Conducting market research with current, former, and potential customers will provide areas to focus on and improve. A well-written survey with measurable results will provide the data needed to analyze services. Sites including surveymonkey.com and constantcontact.com offer low- cost, web- based surveys.

2.       Tip 2: Reduce Costs and Interact More With Your Customers:  The internet has made it easy to reduce meeting and travel costs.  According to Gotomeeting.com, virtual meetings with clients or webinars can reduce travel budgets by 90%.  Webinars can also be recorded to share on the web for future presentations. 

Vontage.com offers voiceover IP programs for phone and fax at a fraction of the cost of a normal land line. Similar internet-based phone services, including Skype, offer free calling through the internet.  This can significantly reduce domestic and  international phone costs.

3.       Tip 3: Low Cost Brand Awareness:  In today’s market every company needs an interactive digital marketing plan.  Social media sites, e-mail blasts, blogs, e-check-ins and group buy- ins can increase brand recognition and customer base. Google Ad words and Facebook advertising offer a cost- effective way to target only the customers the business wants to attract.  A great SEO (search engine optimization) program mixing Facebook, Bing, and Google will increase website traffic exponentially.   Enfortegroup.com offers a complete digital marketing outsource solution at a low monthly rate. 

4.       Tip 4:  Increase Sales Using Demographics:  Economist Viffredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the wealth in his country: 20% of the people own-- 80% of the wealth. It became famous when Dr. Joseph Juran, a quality management pioneer, used it to describe economics as “virtual few and trivial many.”  Dr. Juan’s observation evolved into the principle, 20% of something is always responsible for 80% of the results.

The 80/20 rule applied to a customer base will separate customers who will actually increase the bottom line from the ones who will not. The core customer base should receive more focus and a higher level of service.  The same theory can be applied to your leads.

Placing  customers into demographic groups and then into psychographics will help you form a clearer picture of the types of customers to attract.  The key is to determine the services or products  each group is interested in and may not get from the competition.   Websites including City search and the US Census Beau provide detailed breakdowns of area demographics.

New Brand, New Point of View

One of the first things you learn in marketing 101, a good branding strategy goes a long way.  It creates the image for your company and what you want you want your current and potential consumers to recognize and take away. 

A great logo can be the image your consumers file away in their minds for future use or completely forget about after they see it.  It has to be well thought out and represent what you stand for, offer to the customer and of course be aesthetically pleasing.

Gap came under fire this week for changing the tried and true three white letters on a blue back groud to something a little more hip and trendy.  It has been the topic of news stories and reached the top 5 searched phrases this week.  I found it interesting how a logo change could cause such an internet buzz.  The brutal comments from  graphic designers, marketers and shopper are making the company take a second look at the design.

We form a love and hate relationship with logos.  Take for interest when Pepsi changes their logo every so many years. We are in the habit of looking for a certain color pattern and eye catcher,  a change makes us have to search harder for in soda aisle.

Relocation Insurance is designing a new website to make it easier for our customers and affiliates to purchase insurance, see reports and over all create a easier site navigation.  We have had the pleasure of speaking with several design firms in the decision making process and they each have a unique way of taking our ideas and putting them into a site proposal.  It has also been a fun process looking at different websites and figuring out how we want ours to look.

Our new site should be fully operational by spring.  We will keep you updated as we get closer.

Did you company go through a logo or website change recently?  What were the results?  Do you think a logo defines your company?