Wealthy Bag Lady Blog

Top 7 Ways to Show Some Love to Your Customers

In this challenging economy, it's more important than ever to show some love to your customers. Let them know they're special and how much you appreciate their business.

1. Give Them a Welcome Gift: Some great welcome gifts I've received include books, plaques, mugs, even an expensive hand cream. You could also give them an online gift card. A great way to retain special customers is a gourmet gift basket or a monthly gift such as a fruit of the month club, cake of the month club, etc.
2. Have a Special Customer Appreciation Event: If you have a physical storefront or office, you can throw a special party for prospects and customers at your place. If you work out of a home office, you can do a an event at a venue such as a hotel or put on a virtual event through a conference call or webinar.
3. Answer Customer Phone Calls and Emails Immediately: People love to feel special and acknowledged. Don't wait days to respond to your customers, or worse, not respond to them at all. If you're overwhelmed, you can hire a virtual assistant to respond to your clients' phone calls and emails.
4. Remember Their Special Occasions: Make a note of your clients' birthdays, anniversaries, kid's graduations, even pet's birthdays. A friend of mine, Kelly O'Neil, founder of the upcoming Mentor to the Millionaires Conference, tells the story of how her Mercedes Benz dealer sent a special birthday card to her puppies. This doggie birthday card cost the dealer only a few dollars, but it turned into a $68,000 sale. Kelly ended up buying another Mercedes Benz from the dealer who sent her the doggie birthday card.
5. Write Testimonials for Them: Send some love to your customers by writing testimonials about the virtues of their businesses and give them plenty of referrals.
6. Feature Them in Your Newsletters and Social Media: You can also give your customers some great visibility in your email marketing. Social media web sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn make it easy to recommend people and write testimonials for them.
7. Call and Thank Them When They Give You Referrals: When people give you great referrals, call them and thank them personally. They may even give you more referrals during your thank you conversation.

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I'd love to know what you think. Please feel free to give me your comments.

The 40 Year Old Virgin Entrepreneur

A new study from the Marion Kauffman Foundation shows most more than 95% of entrepreneurs surveyed in the study had earned bachelor’s degrees, and 47% had more advanced degrees. Besides being well-educated, the median age of company founders in this sample when they started their companies was 40 years old, while the majority were married (69.9%) with at least one child (59.7%) as start-up founders.

Backgrounds of Entrepreneurs

The study found that 71.5% of respondents came from middle-class backgrounds, while 21.8% said they came from upper-lower-class families. Less than 1% have extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds.

Motivations of Business Owners

As for the primary motivation for starting their companies, the entrepreneurs in the survey indicated overwhelmingly (74.8%) that they desired to build wealth. Nearly as important to these entrepreneurs with regards to starting up a business was “capitalizing on a business idea,” as 68.1% of respondents selected this factor. Other popular motivators include the appeal of a start-up culture; a desire to own a company; and a lack of interest in working for someone else.

Women and Men?

Interestingly, the study did not say the ratio of men and women entrepreneurs.

Please tell me what you think.