How to deal with a potential customer

There are no fast rules or slow rules when dealing with a potential customer. Sometimes, experience and situation played some parts as well.

First, I would like to share a few expectations:
1.  The first meet-up is the hardest, awkward and a total mystery. Sometimes you just don't know what to expect. Just be prepared and expect the unexpected.

2. Not all potential customers are going to convert into paying customer.  They could be not ready to buy or you are not convincing enough.

3. Don't get starstruck. A big corporation would be nice to have as a marquee client, but don't lose perspective. Those kinds of prospects often demand extensive proposals, they have high expectation, take longer to make decisions and expect highly competitive bids. 

Here some guides when dealing with a potential customer. Fine tuned them as you get more involved.

1.  Don’t Come on Too Strong – Respect Your Prospect

It’s very important to be respectful of a customer’s mood when trying to propose your products or services.  Keeping your patience is key to giving your prospect the time to air out their preferences or requirements.  The more comfortable the customer is the more likely they’ll share valuable feedback or info that can help you in a preparing a solid proposal.

2. Always Listen – Hear What Your Prospects are Saying

At a time when it’s easy to have a two-way dialogue with your prospects, it’s important to truly listen. Some people are reluctant to share or reveal their problem to a stranger. So whenever the prospects brought up his problem, do take note. It will be easier to come out with the solution if you know the problem.  

3. Continue to Satisfy – Offer Follow-up and Support  

The #1 reason for customer attrition is dissatisfaction with customer service. Do everything in your power to provide excellent service to your customers or prospects on an ongoing basis.  

There’s never any reason to slow down on satisfying your audience, especially when they’re chatting with you live over the phone or gave your their valuable time for a meeting. It’s important to note that 81% of companies with strong capabilities and competencies for delivering customer experience excellence are outperforming their competition. Take note, customer satisfaction is a key differentiator in a sea of other companies.

4. Treat a Prospect Like a Valued Partner – Communication is Two Way

As previously mentioned, take your prospect’s feedback seriously even though they are no yet your customer and act upon reasonable requests. What’s the point of listening if you’re not going to act on that feedback or request? Make sure it’s clear that you want your customer’s feedback and that your business truly values them as a partner.

If you’re looking for an example of how to show your customer that their opinion matters, look at what the Buffer app team is doing. Buffer app is a social media management tool that helps businesses and individuals schedule their content for the best times to share and get engagement. The Buffer blog features a variety of quality content focused on marketing, achieving happiness, and a monthly series known as the Happiness Report.

5. Follow Through on Your Word – Follow Up on Promises

Your word is your bond. Following up on your promises helps show the transparency of your business while helping to build a feeling of trust and dependability with your audience.

Manage the expectations of your customers to ensure realistic goals are set and can be met. By remaining consistent in your messaging, your customers will learn what they should expect from you in the future.
F.W. Nichol said it best, “When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word “succeed,” you find that it simply means to follow through.” Or locally, there is a term called "Jangan cakap tak serupa bikin".

6. Impress when possible

Some prospects are very particular with your capabilities. They want to know if you know your stuff before they part with their money.  If they asked for an opinion, share with them your experience and track record and how do you solve a similar problem before. And when it comes to technology, let them know that we are also constantly learning and improving to catch up with technology advancement. That should give them some comfort that we want to maintain our competency.


7. Always Say “Thank You” – Kindness and Gratitude will Take You Far

Last, but certainly not least, always say “Thank you.” As many as 3 out of 4 customers say they have spent more with a company because of a history of positive experiences. Kindness and gratitude for a customer’s business is an undeniable way to further enchant them for the long term.

Thanks them for their time even if there are not buying your product.

8. Lastly, keep calm and be ohsome

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Prevention is better than cure. If you're still using Windows XP, it's time for an upgrade. Act fast than be sorry later. It's not only us claiming to have a cure, a group of Frenchmen did claim they has a cure for WannaCry too. They have the tool call WanaKiwi.

Let's see if Google can bring some clicks to this page. I'm experimenting with a guerilla marketing.

How to write an effective Email Subject Lines

Why do you need to optimize your marketing email? Based on a survey, over 60% (or nearly 1/3) of online consumers made a purchase as a result of marketing emails. Hence the need for an effective email subject lines to attract their attention.

How to write optimal subject lines? Below are some tips:
1. Use "Alert", "News" or "Bulletin" in subject lines

2. Use "Daily" or "Weekly" in subject line. Avoid using "Monthly".

3. Use "Sale", "New" or "Video" in subject lines boost open and click-through rates. Obviously, there are a lot of readers that loves videos.

4. Be useful and ultra specific.

5. Identify yourself.

6. Be visually different.

7. Use timely topics and urgency that are top of mind.

8. Use a call-to-action (CTA) by asking a question.

9. Test your subject lines so you can repeat what works best

10. Use ALL CAPS to highlight words in the subject line. Example: Best PRICE.

12. Avoid repetitive subject line. Not many people like a recycled topic.

Apart of the subject line itself, you can also optimize the mail body content to maximized the click-through. Basically, you want to keep your email body short, attractive and to the point. Here's how to do it:
1. Clearly convey your offer and how it can benefit your readers.

2. Use images in your body content. People process images 60,000 times faster than text.

3. Use short paragraphs and bullet points. The average adult's attention span is 8 seconds.

4. Personalize content with Name, Location, Company, etc. 4 of 10 marketing emails are marked as spam because they are irrelevant.

5. Best practices for optimized Call-To-Actions (CTAs).
5.a Focus on one primary action you want your audience to take.
5.b Create a CTA with a button or link.
5.c Make sure call-to-action is prominent and visually distinctive.
5.d Keep your calls-to-action "above the fold," so they are visible without the reader having to scroll down.
5.e Use action, urgency, and friendly words in your CTA.
5.f Include multiple links and buttons throughout your email.

Over 70% of mobile purchasing decisions are influenced by promotional emails, thus the need to optimize your mail for mobile.
1. 64% of decision-makers read their email via mobile devices, namely smartphone or tablet.

2. 48% of emails are opened on mobile device.

3. 69% of mobile users delete emails that aren't optimized for mobile.

4. 89% of email marketers lose leads because their emails aren't mobile optimized.

Optimize your email for mobile. This is important as well as more than 60% of all emails are opened from a mobile device. And this trend is increasing. How to optimize your site for mobile? 
1. Increase the size of links and CTA buttons. The average size of an adult index fingers is 1.6-2 cm, which translates to 45-57 pixels on a mobile device.

2. Space links far enough from each other that there isn't any accidental clicking.

3. Reduce image size. Every 1-second delay in loading time results in an average 7% drop in conversion. Use services such as FastStone, Photo Resizer and JPEGmini to reduce your file size up to 80% while maintaining image quality.

4. Resize images by proportion of screen. Alter the style portion of the code in your email HTML editor to define image size by proportion.

Source: various sites.