Discover practical advice, inspiration, and insights to help you succeed in business and grow both personally and professionally.
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A business is nothing without the customers it serves. Truly great businesses also understand that it is important to foster rapport with clients to ensure that you can do business more than once—the key is to have an ongoing relationship with your client instead of just a one-time business dealing.
Clients can provide your business with so much more than money. Happy clients act as advocates, spreading the good word about a business on their own. If done correctly, you might even find fulfilling, long-term partnerships with some clients.
Here are some vital ways to turn your contacts into clients, and clients into trusted friends/partners.
Networking the right way
You are probably familiar with the idea of networking: connecting with a large group of people (business colleagues, business partners, acquaintances, past and current clients) in the hopes of helping each other in some way. The problem is that sometimes it is easy to forget that networking is a two-way street. If you use your network the right way, you can add value to the connections you make instead of only worrying about the value others give to you.
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Keep in contact
Networking is wonderful, but it must be nurtured to survive past the short-term. No matter how engaging or memorable you are when meeting a contact for the first time, you’ll have to remind them that you exist or inevitably they will forget you. Even if your contact is uninterested in what you have to offer at the current time, that might change—and you’ll be there if it does.
Add value to the relationship: reward your returning customers
As mentioned above, be sure to add value to the relationship. This might be in the form of tangible rewards like coupons, discounts, or free merchandise—or it could be something a bit more abstract like passing along useful information or sending friendly messages about new products, services, or deals that they might be interested in. The goal is to not only receive from your clients, but to give back in the hope that they return the favor. This is crucial because, as many studies have found, returning customers spend more on average than first-time customers.
Care about your clients
Care about your clients as both important business transactions (by providing them the best of your services as possible) and as people. Be honest with them at all times and keep your word: it might seem like a no-brainer, but you are dealing with people, so you should treat them with the respect they deserve. They will appreciate it!
The final step: from client to partner
If you do everything right, you can begin forging a partnership with your clients. They will grow in value for you today and in the future—and you for them. They will add value to the relationship as advocates of your business wherever they go. View this partnership like a great friendship, and you will both be very happy.
In March of this year, Cydcor volunteers went to San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, thanks to our Operation Smile fundraisers—which have raised over $480,000 for the children’s medical charity to date. Helping to fund cleft palate surgeries for needy children around the globe, Cydcor has previously volunteered in Brazil in 2012, where more than 600 surgeries were provided to children.
Cydcor is proud of this partnership with Operation Smile, and with the great success of our Week of Smiles campaign, we are funding another medical mission trip to Guatemala in November 2014. Spending a week in Guatemala, our volunteers will support the screening process, helping families through the procedure and entertaining children while they wait for their procedures.
The mission involves sending doctors, volunteers and equipment to an area where access to healthcare is difficult, providing screenings and surgeries for children. Cleft palates often result in complications to eating, drinking, speaking and even breathing, and many infants do not survive. Operation Smile and Cydcor hope to restore millions of smiles and give those children a better chance of thriving.
One of the most rewarding aspects is our chance to spend time with the families of the children being operated on and see them through the transition of surgery. A large part of Operation Smile’s strategy is to assist facilities in the field, helping enable them to provide treatment of cleft palates and other facial deformities.
You can make a donation to Operation Smile today and support this great cause!
Cydcor is growing! The build out crew in our new space has been hard at work and they have made considerable progress! Take a look at the pictures and you’ll see that the framing for most offices and the hallways is close to completion. The next steps were wiring in the office walls and drywall – exciting!
The offices that are along the internal wall have been constructed so there is now clear division. A lot of work has been done on the lobby. The ceiling and walls have been opened up so that the staircase can be built. First, the construction crew needs to put in large heavy steel beams for support.
There has been so much progress made in the past two weeks. The glass frames have been installed for each office and all walls are up and prepped for painting.
The lobby is completely opened up and the staircase is nearing completion. In just two and a half short weeks furniture and fixtures will start being delivered and placed.
Stay tuned for more information on the move!
Head over to Cydcor Media for advice regarding business, leadership, and office life.
Communicating in a clear and effective way is always important, both in real life situations and especially in business communications. We converse so much that we often forget to stop and think about what we are saying. When communicating in a professional context, you need to be aware of the little nuances that are held in your words and actions.
Here are some tips for becoming an influential communicator:
Have a clear goal and benefits for all parties.
Transparency is important. The worst thing that could happen is having your conversation be misunderstood. Therefore, you will want to make a clear goal when talking with a client, or potential client. It also helps to make sure that you frame your message in a way that presents the benefits for that party.
With that said…
Know your audience.
Your audience is whomever you are communicating with. Who are they? What do they want? How do they speak? What do they know? Understanding your audience is incredibly important because it provides you all the information you need to tailor your communications to be the most effective for that specific person or group of people.
Knowing your audience makes it less likely that you will waste time explaining things that are already known, glossing over important details that you assume are understood.
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Be sure to ask the right kinds of questions
Learn to strategically drop “leading questions” that prompt longer answers than “yes” or “no.” This will help guide your conversation in a productive direction.
Ask important qualifying questions to ensure that your leads will turn into a prospect. Largely, you’ll be asking questions that are focused around answering these key questions: Can and will you be able to authorize on the sale? What can I do for you to close on this sale?
Naturally, you should take information you learned from your audience and tailor the question accordingly for them, but these simple questions capture the essence of what you need to find out from your prospect.
When you think of productivity, being constantly active might come to mind. But while always being in motion can improve your productivity at times, it can also lead to mindless “productivity” where you waste time doing something that you don’t need to do.
The real trick is to work intelligently. Great time management skills are the first step to becoming a smart worker. Here are some helpful time management techniques that will help increase your productivity.
Do regular reviews of your productivity and take action to resolve issues with your productivity. You might want to do reviews either weekly or monthly—not so often that you begin wasting time evaluating everything, but not so far apart that their benefit is diluted.
Be sure to follow Cydcor on Facebook to keep up with our latest news and updates, including our upcoming Bahamas event, R&R 2014!
Cydcor is excited to announce the success of our ‘Week of Smiles’ campaign, which served as a great opportunity for to work together to raise money for Operation Smile! Operation Smile is a children’s medical organization that helps children who have cleft lips and palates receive new smiles. It has offices across the country to raise awareness and funds. Cydcor is proud to be a part of the Operation Smile network.
Our ‘Week of Smiles’ has raised over $30,000 for Operation Smile. With these funds, doctors, volunteers and equipment will travel to an area where access to healthcare is difficult, providing screenings and surgeries for children. Cleft lips and palates can often make eating and drinking difficult, and Operation Smile looks to restore smiles and give those children a better chance at thriving.
At the beginning of 2014, Cydcor volunteers traveled to San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, where they were able to meet some of the individuals that directly benefited from their fundraising efforts. In about a month, another team of ours will be headed to Guatamla for our third mission. In all started In 2012, volunteers made a similar trip to Brazil, where more than 600 surgeries were provided to children. Cydcor is proud of its partnership with Operation Smile and plans to continue working with the organization in the future.
Once again, thank you to everyone in the organization who worked so hard with their fundraisers, we truly couldn’t have done it without you!
Follow Cydcor on Facebook for more news and updates regarding our company, as well as our latest activities with Operation Smile.
Cydcor is gearing up for our annual R&R event, and this year we are looking forward to several days off for fun in the sun for attendees from the network of independent sales companies!
This year’s R&R Owners Weekend is being held in late October in Nassau, Bahamas, at the beautiful Atlantis Paradise Island. Our primary focuses are on rest and relaxation for the hundreds that will be in attendance and celebration of the successes of the past year.
Sales company owners will enjoy a weekend full of events, including themed meals, a Junkanoo-themed dinner, our 3rd Annual Talent Show, a private pool party with a DJ, and our 7th Annual Charity Tournament and Carnival! There will also be a beach volleyball charity game, which will fundraise for Operation Smile, an international children’s medical charity treating cleft lips and clef palates around the world.
We’ve already kicked off R&R 2014 with a Bahama-themed postcard caption contest, with the winning entry from Ryan Caugherty. Ryan won $100 toward food and fun by participating in our Facebook contest. Thank you to all who entered!
With water parks, nightclubs, “Paradise” beaches and dolphin swims, there’s no lack of fun options for our owners and their friends and families. We can’t wait to start packing!
For more information about Cydcor, head to our page on CareerBuilder.
What makes Cydcor the recognized leader in outsources sales services?. We interviewed Cydcor CEO, Gary Polson, President Jim Majeski and Chief Operating Officer Vera Quinn, to describe what makes Cydcor stand out in a changing sales market, and what qualities Cydcor has in both its team members and culture that makes it a world-wide powerhouse in sales.
“We are hard-wired as a ‘people-helping-people’ business. Developing our people, unleashing their potential is what excites us the most, we have a passion about, and we got to learn to be great at that,” says Cydcor CEO Gary Polson.
Learn for yourself about Cydcor’s commitment, quality, and integrity and how we wow our clients and employees. Watch and listen to members of the team leading Cydcor - a worldwide powerhouse in professional outsourced sales!
We are Cydcor, the premiere outsourced sales service provider. Find out more about Cydcor on CareerBuilder.
In 2010, Wayne State University began a research project that examined the baseball cards of players in the Major League from 1952. The study found that the researchers could predict the lifespan of the players based on their smiles. The players who smiled in their cards lived an average of 79.9 years. Those who didn’t smile lived an average of only 72 years.
UC Berkley did a similar study, examining the smiles of students in yearbooks versus their general well-being and success. The thirty-year study found that researchers were able to predict how successful a student would be based on how wide their smiles were in the photos.
The concept of smiling is universal, with studies conducted in Papua New Guinea with tribes completely disconnected from Western culture. These tribes were found to also attribute smiles to happiness, security and confidence.
So how can this knowledge help someone in a real world or workplace setting? Timothy Ketelaar, an associate professor of psychology at New Mexico State University that has run similar studies says, “Smiles can put you in a positive light by signaling that you’re friendly and trustworthy, and that you aren’t a threat to others.”
In fact, even sounding like one is smiling can be beneficial to building trust. Many call center companies train their employees to smile while they speak, as the act of smiling can alter one’s voice to a happier, pleasant tone which can translate over the phone to clients.
The act of smiling is also contagious, as one Harvard University study found. The research showed that when a person is happy or smiling, a person nearby has a 25 percent higher chance of becoming happier themselves.
These studies and results show that if you want to appear confident, calm and competent, smiling is a straightforward and universal way to display it. Tap into the simple superpower of smiling, and you’ll find yourself feeling better, building trust and establishing long-lasting, positive relationships.
Check out the Cydcor Sales YouTube page for more information about the work that Cydcor has done to benefit Operation Smile.
For more information about Cydcor, check out our profile on CrunchBase.
Jack London once said of creativity, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Waiting around for a spark of motivation or creativity isn’t always an effective option when you have clients to attend to. Sometimes you need to go out and find the inspiration yourself.
Being creative can be exhausting, and sometimes the best way to recharge is to step away from the project or task for a while. You might be surprised at how stepping away can aid in your creative flow. Focusing on one task can sometimes lead to a narrow-minded view and can impede your creativity. Exiting the task for a short while and returning to it can often lead to new ideas and a fresh perspective.
In the same vein, break away from your usual routine if you’re finding yourself stuck. See a movie in a theater you haven’t been to before, read a new book or visit a local park or beach in a different area than the norm. You might find upon your return the sense of familiarity can make it easier to sit down and pick up where you left off.
If you find yourself struggling with an idea, share it with someone else. Seek out a new creative perspective by having a team member comment on how they’d envision the project heading. Sometimes sharing the details of your idea can allow others to aid you in connecting the dots in new ways.
There are also many apps to help promote creativity. Take advantage of new technology and tools available, such as ways to store your notes, visuals to display your presentation, and brainstorming exercises to help you break away from mental roadblocks.
Always remember to take care of yourself, and rest when needed. Sleep can do amazing things for the mind, and some challenges are better undertaken after a good rest. Avoid tackling important projects until you get a proper sleep, so your mind can be up to the task.
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We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services.
An effective sales presentation is more than show-and-tell. You need to be strategic about how you present and illustrate an understanding of your client’s needs and wants. You also need to analyze the possible competition that client might be speaking to. It’s vital you have a clear pitch to present that demonstrates why your service or product is better, and why it is in the best interest of the customer to go with you.
The first step to a winning sales presentation is to know when to best present it. A common mistake is to launch into your pitch immediately. What needs to occur prior to a pitch is a brief discovery phase. Even if you’ve spoken to the client previously regarding their wants and needs, it’s important to clarify in person prior to the presentation to see if anything has changed. Perhaps they have recently met with a competitor or a part of their process has changed since you last spoke.
Speak directly with your client and ask questions to understand their challenges, desires and methods. You can determine from this conversation the best way to approach your pitch by understanding fully what they need, and whether you are able to adequately provide the solution.
Don’t get so wrapped up in your presentation that you stop paying attention to your client. Remember to look up, make eye contact, and look for body language that might signal they have a question or aren’t following you, such as a slightly raised hand or facial expression. Stop your pitch and let them ask a question. What they have to say is more important than what you have to say.
Always be courteous of your client’s time by being concise and to the point. Rambling at great lengths can often lead to an aggravated customer. Get to your key points and illustrate why the client will benefit from what you can offer.
Find out more about Cydcor by visiting our page on YouTube.