how to grow your business in a recession

Referral Marketing: More Effective Than Ever

Word of mouth recommendations are, by far, the most powerful way to build business and yet, 'doing a good job', does not lead to as many referrals as you think or deserve.

We get paid to do a good job and customers have raised their expectations when it comes to the level of service they are looking for.

Most business owners admit that they get a much of their business from referrals yet very few know how they get them and more to the point, how to create them to order, on an ongoing basis. To do so, you need a system and we have a system proven to work.

Attending networking events is important in providing visibility for you and your business, but it is only part of a strategy and certainly not a system focused on referrals.

Advertising: Less Effective Than You Think

The challenge of creating visibility through advertising is as follows:

1. You are not paying attention. Nobody is.

Everyone is shouting at us to try this, buy that and so we close our ears, shut out the noise and stop listening. Fact is, we are not listening and neither are your potential customers.

There have never had so many different ways to advertise business. More newspapers, radio and television stations. More direct mail, more email spam. More sales calls, more websites. The average person is exposed to 3000 advertising messages a day.

All saying the same thing. People have had enough. We are not listening any more.

What does this mean to those of us looking for new business? Each year it costs more to reach potential new customers, who are not paying attention.

2. No one really believes adverts anyway.

Marketing for Growth in a Recession

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