If you are a loan officer or mortgage broker looking to score some more customers the easy way, here are a few good ideas for a marketing strategy.
During the entire process of getting a loan ready for closing, you and your customer are met with more than one reason to celebrate other than at the closing table.
For example, before you can proceed with a loan, your customer must have an appraisal done on their home.
Once that appraisal comes in, both to the liking of you and your customer, send your customer an inexpensive congratulatory gift such as a tin of pretzels, cookies, or candy.
But make sure you send it to their place of employment.
Why do something so cheesy you may ask?
Because when you send someone a gift at work, all of their fellow employees want to know why they got it and who it was from.
So when they ask, your customer will tell them all about you and the products and services you are providing them with.
Also, if you have sent some of your business cards along with the gift, you better believe they will be handing them out.
Don’t forget to use the same technique once the loan is approved and than again once the loan is closed.
This is a perfect way to get your customers selling you and your products to co-workers, friends and family.
A Perfect Marketing Strategy for Loan Officers
Blackjack Strategy Tips: How to Win in Blackjack
Blackjack is one of the few casino games that are beatable in the long run. It means that by using a basic blackjack strategy you can have an advantage over the casino and eventually step away from the blackjack table as a winner. Here you can find the basic blackjack strategy explained in a simplified manner.
The blackjack strategy is based on the mathematical probabilities of the game and it provides you guidance on the best decisions to make at every possible situation during the game. It takes about an hour to memorize this strategy but it is worth every minute. This does not man you will win every single blackjack game from now on, but with the help of the blackjack strategy, patience and persistence, you can significantly improve your chances of beating the casino in the long run.
Note that some blackjack rules vary from one casino to another. In some casinos, both brick and mortar and internet casinos, blackjack is played with one card deck while in others the blackjack game occupies four decks or more. In addition, in some of the casinos the dealer hits on a soft 17 while in others he is required to stand and doubling after splitting is allowed only in some of the casinos.
Here you can find a basic strategy to a single deck blackjack game where the dealer hits on soft 17. Playing other blackjack variants would require you to make some adjustments for a few borderline occurrences.
First, here is a short introduction to the terms mentioned here:
Hard Hand: two initial cards that do not include an Ace.
Soft Hand: two initial cards that one of them is an Ace
Stand: when a player is not asking to be dealt more cards after the two initial cards.
Hit: when a player calls for an additional card to be dealt
Double: when a player doubles his initial bet after the initial deal, but it requires him to hit only one card.
Split: when a player separates the initial two cards into two individual hands and plays them as 2 hands.
Finally, here is a basic blackjack strategy:
When your initial two card hand sums up to 8 or less: hit
When your hand sums up to 9 and the dealer hand value is between 3 and 6: double if else: hit when your hand sums up to 10 and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 9: double; if else:
When your hand sums up to 11 and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 10: double; if else hit.
When your hand sums up to 13, 14, 15, or 16 and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 6: stand; if else hit.
When your hand sums up to 17: stand.
when your initial two card hand contains Ace 2 or Ace 3 and the dealer has either 5 or 6: double; if else: hit.
When your hand contains Ace 4 or Ace 5 and the dealer has 4, 5 or 6: double; if else: hit.
When your hand contains Ace 6 and the dealer has 3, 4, 5 or 6: double; if else: hit.
When your hand contains Ace 7 and the dealer has 2, 7 or 8: stand; if he has 3, 4, 5 or 6: double; if else: hit.
When your hand contains Ace 8 or Ace 9: stand
When your hand contains a pair of 2s or 3s and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 7: split; if else: hit
When your hand contains a pair of 4s and the dealer has either 4 or 5: split; if else: hit
When your hand contains a pair of 5s and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 9: double; if else: hit
When your hand contains a pair of 6s and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 6: split; if else: hit
When your hand contains a pair of 7s and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 7: split; if else: hit
When your hand contains a pair of 8s: split
When your hand contains a pair of 9s and the dealer hand value is between 2 and 7 and either 8 or 9: split; if else: stand
When your hand contains a pair of 10s: stand
When your hand contains a pair of 8s: split
A Reality Check On Your Marketing Strategy
The 'Marketing Strategy' is the way we have come up with for achieving our marketing goals and it should include two mandatory elements:
- Which target consumers whom we can reach, hold a viable potential to buy whatever we intend to sell?
- What is the offer (the entire marketing mix) we will be presenting to these consumers in order to appeal to them and thus realize the said potential, given their alternatives?
You must not think of these as two separate questions but rather as two parts of the same idea. Let me clarify. What are "target consumers with a potential to buy"? These are consumers (a sizeable enough group with buying power) likely to desire what you are offering. Why would they want it? That is the potential that you are supposed to identify. There may be several reasons. For example, maybe they are not consumers of your kind of product yet, however, they might be if something happens, or if they are exposed to a certain message. It could be that they have special needs or preferences, which up until today were not catered to by any of your competitors' offers (and don't forget that psychological, social, aesthetic needs are real needs). Maybe they are bored with what they routinely buy. When you identify such a situation, you know that the potential is there.
Identifying potential is only the initial stage of your mission, of course. Your strategy would also have to include something that you are going to offer these consumers that might improve their situation in a certain way, solve a problem, give them more than what they already get for the same price, or open new opportunities for them. In short, something that will motivate them to buy from you and thus materialize the potential.
The 'Marketing Scenario' is a synopsis of the logic of your marketing strategy. In the same breath, it also enables you to make sure that that logic really works. The 'Marketing Scenario' translates the 'Marketing Strategy' to simple everyday language. How will it happen in reality? How will the materialization of marketing goals occur? I don't know whether or not you have already sunk in this fact, but marketing goals are achieved through customer acts. So, let's assume that we install a webcam with enhanced psychological insight capabilities inside the market and that it captures the materialization of our marketing plan, one purchase after another.
What is the 'Marketing Scenario'?
The 'Marketing Scenario' is an amazingly simple tool to use: Only four questions. Are you jotting this down?
1. Who are the people who we believe have the potential of buying what we intend to sell? Yes, these are the same people we so often refer to as the 'Target Consumers'. First, we must define our targets. What do these people have in common that makes them probable prospects (in the sense that they are likely to be particularly interested in our offer)? We could use demographic, socioeconomic, psychographic, as well as lifestyle descriptions. Note that at times, we target not a specific group but a wide almost indefinable group of people in a specific mood, a specific situation, or a specific need or state.
Make room for another possibility. You can target not a defined group of consumers but rather a state of need/desire or a consumption context shared by many diverse consumers at one time or another.
2. What precisely should they be doing (that they are not doing already and will probably not do if we will not intervene), that would direct them to eventually choose our brand specifically? It is, by the way, the first and only objective of branding. What do they have to do so that your marketing plan will materialize (even before the actual purchase)? Do they have to go somewhere? To call? To agree to meet your salesperson? To stop and pick out your product from the shelf? Which activity, which does not occur today, would lead them in the correct path on the way to buying?
3. What is the sound reason that should motivate them to change their behavioral inertia? How will they benefit from that change? Why would you, in their place, buy what you are offering? You can think of it as your differentiating factor (what makes you differentially better?), or as your competitive advantage (what makes you comparatively better?), according to your preference. What could make their situation better compared to their current standing and to the other options available to them in the market?
4. How exactly will they extract the benefit (that which answers question 3) according to your marketing plan? That is not a repeat question. Notice that the third question dealt with the 'why' of the target consumer's planned motivation, and now, we are trying to understand the 'how' of your marketing plan. How are you planning to provide the benefit defined in the answer to question 3? If, for instance, you said before that you are making something more accessible, easy or comfortable for them, now explain how it will become more accessible, easy or comfortable, due to you product.
Let us look at an example: The introduction of Palm Pilot to the market. O.K.? Just the main points:
1. "Residents" of the business community, gadgets fans, who manage a dynamic, constantly changing schedule, and have not yet embraced the electronic organizers, or were disappointed by them because of their being laborious to update and generally unreliable.
2. ... will step into the nearest office equipment store and ask about the Palm Pilot.
3. ... because at last there is an organizer which is not only sophisticated, small and wonderfully shaped, but is also easily kept up to date and preserves the stored data when damaged or when upgrading to a new model
4. ... because the Palm Pilot can 'converse' with the PC, making the updating process a simple task to perform, as well as enabling creation of backups which could be easily transferred on to the next generations of organizers.
That is what the 'Marketing Scenario' is all about. All you have to do is answer the questions. Be precise. Be thorough. Be honest. Do it in writing. Even if you're absolutely sure that the answers are positively clear to you and there's nothing to be gained. Only when your 'Marketing Scenario' is totally translated to a written text, should you go on and proceed with the brand development process. Otherwise, you will get trapped along the way, and don't say I didn't warn you.
A Simple Sales Strategy: Define What Selling Is!
How do you define selling? A lot of people think of selling as persuading/convincing people to buy things they may or may not want or need. To some, selling is all about closing a deal. Thinking of selling like this is not very empowering to you. Frankly, if you have this perspective on selling, it's no wonder if you hate it. I would too!
So what perspective can you take about selling that will make it enjoyable, exciting and something you look forward to? Sounds like a bit of a tall order doesn't it? Read on.
Hopefully by now, you have made the list of all the problems that you can solve for your target market. You're going to be surprised how long that list grows over time. So really, if you look at your list and you think about it, you are a master problem solver. What you're really doing is helping people. Correct?
So try on this perspective about what selling is: Selling is helping people. Selling is serving. Selling is a process of identifying and solving people's problems.
See, feel and know that selling is serving. This will cause a big shift for you. With this perspective, you will really become passionate about wanting to help people. Find this passion and let it shine through.
It is your purpose, your moral obligation, to have as many sales conversations with people as you can so you can help as many people as possible. If you're not having these types of sales conversations, you are holding back the gift you have to offer the world. You owe it to people to be there for them with your expertise and wisdom.
Next time you're talking to a potential client, think about how you can help them, how you can serve them. Forget about trying to sell them something. If what you have to offer does solve their problems, and you facilitate the conversation using the strategies we are covering, people will sell themselves and will subsequently buy from you.
If you have a perspective on selling which is one of service and helping people, how do you think the people you're talking to will feel? Think about this: people hate to be sold. The minute they feel they're being sold, they often want to get away - fast. Don't you? On the other hand, if they feel you are sincerely trying to help them solve their problems, they will relax and open up to you.
If you have a perspective on selling which is one of service and helping people, how do you think you will feel? Does energized, excited, relaxed, and natural come to mind?
This perspective is simple but powerful and very attract-tive to clients.
(c) 2005, Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation. You are welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end) and all links are made live.
A Long-Term Strategy For Securing Affiliate & Joint Venture Details
If you want star affiliates in your market to join your affiliate and promote your products, you really have to go out and find them. You can certainly promote your affiliate program on your own website and to get people to sign up, but the best results come when you go out and find your own joint venture partners…and it sounds like you already understand that.
You can find potential partners by finding websites that:
- Have good website traffic
- Have decent sized email lists
- Target your buying audience
How do you find these people?
- Go to your favorite search engine and see which sites come up near the top for your target keywords.
- Check their ESTIMATED traffic ranking at Alexa.com – this site very roughly estimates how popular a site is based on traffic and page views. The lower the ranking number, the busier the site. This is not a foolproof method, but can be used as a guideline to compare websites in similar markets.
- See which sites link to your competition. Go to Google or Yahoo and type in the following: link:yourcompetitorsdomain.com. Just substitute "yourcompetitorsdomain.com" with your competitor’s actual domain name. The results that show up will be sites that link to your competitor. You will potentially find some good sites to partner with here.
- Check DMOZ.org and the Yahoo Directory for websites in an appropriate category for your market.
How do you approach these people?
The common method of many website owners is to send a mass email to entice the webmaster with the lure of commission. Of course, you should make every effort to get a first name to personalize the email and use your Autoresponder to automatically add their name into your email. Include information like their first name, their website URL and any other personal details you can include.
This method will get you the most partners for the least amount of time and effort. Of course, if there are some websites that you REALLY want to say yes, you will need a more personal touch. Realize that in competitive markets, these webmasters probably receive many joint venture requests and yours might be sent to the trash, along with the rest.
If you want to be taken seriously:
- Offer to send them your product for free so they can review it – or just mail it to them right away without any expectations. Even if they can’t promote your product now, if you treat them cordially, they might just promote your product down the line.
- Show them that you know something about their business and comment specifically on some of the projects they are working on or some of their products that you have purchased
- Do something for them first. List them as a recommended resource on your website, etc., and tell them about it.
- Pick up the phone and develop a relationship. Perhaps you can offer to promote his or her product first, instead of asking for a favor right away. Don’t be in a rush to get them to promote your product or you may just burn your bridges completely.
- Show them proven results of other affiliates or illustrate how well your website converts visitors to sales.
Overall, realize that you're probably going to get a lot of "Nos" before you get to the "Yesses". Don't take it personally because people are busy and they can't promote every product that comes their way. Just be open to developing relationships as that is the best long-term strategy in finding great JV partners.
A Simple Strategy to Increase Profits
In today’s competitive business environment it is essential to find ways to reduce costs and increase revenues while keeping productivity and quality high. One of the best ways to achieve this is through hiring and retention of outstanding employees.
Far too often hiring managers rush through the hiring process due to being reactive rather than proactive when filling positions. With some preplanning in the hiring process and implementation of sound strategies once people join your organization, you will lower the cost of doing business by considerable amounts.
As you prepare to hire consider the following:
• What type of person are you looking for?
• What are the values that drive your company?
• How difficult is the job you are filling?
• Do you have anyone internally who can do the job?
• How long will it take to find the right person for the position?
• What are you willing to negotiate with the potential candidate?
In looking for potential candidates you may want to try more than the traditional employee search. Tap into your network of professional connections. Some of your best candidates may be working for your competitors. Be careful about hiring someone just because they are a friend or family member. Not that friends and family members don’t make good employees - often they can be fantastic. And yet, if you are hiring them only because they are a friend or family member, you are setting yourself up for some big problems. With the wrong choice morale with other employees can go down. With the right choice it is just as likely to go up.
Think through the compensation package. Are the wages fair for the job, industry and market? Make sure your benefit package is competitive for your industry. Find out what other companies are offering as far as compensation and consider matching or beating their offerings.
There are occasions when someone may take a position without thinking through income, benefits or fit. Once they have gotten settled in and are feeling comfortable with the position and the company, they may realize the compensation and the job is not all it could be. That can cause some discontent on their part. To avoid this, do your homework.
Another key to keeping good employees is to make sure they are treated with respect, dignity and appreciation. This may seem like common sense and yet, it often doesn’t happen. I consult with various types of organizations employee retention and how to gain more commitment from the staff. I often will meet individually, in private, with a cross section of the staff. I spend at least an hour with each employee in a confidential meeting to find out their view of the company. Inevitably, the areas that are most lacking for the employee to be fully satisfied are communication and appreciation.
Once the area of discontent has been identified I design programs for the company in which to address the problems. What is amazing is the problem is often on the way to being solved by virtue of the fact the organization has brought me in. A common comment is, “Finally, someone is listening to me.”
Often, a company’s problems can be lessened with some good coaching and training of management. It is amazing how many managers and supervisors were put into their position without any training in interpersonal skills, management and supervisory skills, and how to communicate effectively. Nine times out of ten the people who need the most training are the ones who think they need it the least. And, they are often the biggest obstacle to the success of a company.
In order to stay competitive on all fronts you must keep your entire team on the leading edge. By doing so you will be in business for years to come with a happy, dedicated and productive team. And that will equal profits.
A Price-Value Matrix - A Cool Tool for Finding Your Just Right Pricing Strategy
While developing your pricing strategy, it is important to remember that there is an implicit relationship between price and value. We expect to pay more for gourmet food than for fast food and for a luxury car than for an economy model. At the same time, value is a matter of opinion, not fact. I prefer a new Subaru to a '95 Cadillac; my husband prefers the opposite. His wardrobe is built around Dickies; my taste runs to rather more eclectic (and non-synthetic) clothing. Given that there is a relationship between price and value and that value is a matter of opinion, I had always priced my products and services by triangulating three factors: what I wanted or needed to earn, my costs, and what the market would bear. That's what I had taught countless other people to do, and it worked fine. All else being equal, quality, price, and market generally reached a dynamic balance where prosperity and service overlapped.
But, once came the day when something felt out of synch in the way I used that marketing strategy, and I felt some gritchiness around the prices of products I recommended. I kept examining my assumptions, and everything seemed right. Still, the feeling that something wasn't quite right persisted.
Never one to ignore an itch, I kept scratching until this week I realized what the problem is. I had been using quite different "markets" to assess what the market would bear. That is, I'd been looking at markets that had different values from the values of many of the people I attract. I based my pricing strategy and marketing on the proven best practices of other respected "info product" gurus, but those practices were designed to address the values of people who didn't, and probably never would, be attracted to my e-zine.
Readers of my e-zine were a special case. From their emails and phone calls, I knew that they placed a high value on authenticity, intelligence, and creativity. I knew they had high standards for courtesy, honesty, and what I might call "finish." They were tolerant of mistakes (assuming they were acknowledged). They had a sense of humor, a hunger for spirit, and a fundamental commitment to growth. At the same time they tended to be a frugal lot, willing to pay for high quality, but unmoved by hype and positively turned off by pressure tactics.
The generic information marketing model is designed to address the needs of people for whom profit is an over-riding value. These folks -- many of them good souls indeed -- thrive in the hyper-stimulating atmosphere of the motivational circuit: loud, upbeat music, extravagant challenges to dare to be great and simple formulas for achieving success. The more costly the package, the more this customer tends to believe in its value. And I'm willing to suppose that for the right person, that value can be substantial.
But this model didn't fit me and it probably didn't fit my e-zine readers, either. More than likely, they were past believing in "7 Steps to Instant Gratification." They probably didn't believe in easy answers, however much they might sometimes long for them. (Me, too.)
The bottom line is that, in that case, so-called "best practices" just didn't apply. The sophistication, values, and life experience of this community constituted a different market, and we would just have to develop our own best practices.
What would those practices look like? My hunch was:
Transparency: No fake sales; any specials should be clearly linked to a business purpose, and the regular retail price should always be fair so if you miss a sale you can feel good about buying at another time for full price.
-- Clarity: Accurate, no-hype descriptions of products and services.
-- Simplicity: Prices expressed in whole dollar amounts. Forget the "95 cents" gimmicks. We can round up!
-- Trust: Simple returns and exchanges.
I evaluated the marketing and pricing strategy for my products and those of affiliates, keeping asking the questions that gave birth to "Authentic Promotion" in the first place: "What's bugging me about the way I do (or think I have to do) business? What am I assuming? What is the truth of this? What if the truth were not a problem?"
Goldilocks tried three chairs, three bowls of porridge, and three beds before finding the ones that were "just right." In much the same way, your working toward "just right" prices and marketing methods will definitely pay off, as it did for me. I believe this price-value matrix will help you to find your "just right" price!
For example, my client sells a course which is a comprehensive self-guided seminar that transforms fears and resistance to marketing into grounded advocacy for good work. It’s a high value, if she does say so herself. Still, it has a medium price because she is still working on way to convey to potential purchasers the potency and efficacy of this course. One way she is doing that is to develop a series of follow up emails that remind buyers of key practices and principles, that ask powerful questions to help them move forward, and that suggest specific sections of the program that solve specific challenges. As she develops this support, she will be able to charge -- and receive -- a higher price.
PRICE-VALUE MATRIX
HIGH VALUE -- LOW PRICE
Underpriced: value undercut by price. "What's wrong with this picture" pricing strategy.
HIGH VALUE -- MEDIUM PRICE
Attractive pricing: ideal for market penetration. "More for your money" pricing strategy.
HIGH VALUE -- HIGH PRICE
Premium pricing: prestige, prominence. "Connoisseur" pricing strategy.
MEDIUM VALUE -- LOW PRICE
True bargain: may be a temporary special to raise revenue or to move discontinued items. "Inventory sale" strategy.
MEDIUM VALUE -- MEDIUM PRICE
Price and value are in balance, exclusive of other factors. "Square deal" pricing strategy.
MEDIUM VALUE -- HIGH PRICE
Overpriced: informed buyers will stay away; sales may be made to unsophisticated market. "Infomercial" pricing strategy.
LOW VALUE -- LOW PRICE
Cheap stuff. Often sold with lots of "bonus" items or features. "Tourist trap" pricing strategy.
LOW VALUE -- MEDIUM PRICE
Turns sales into complaints. "Caveat emptor" pricing strategy. ("Let the buyer beware.")
LOW VALUE -- HIGH PRICE
Don't even think about it: the "Fleece 'em and run" pricing strategy.
Tipping as a Business Strategy
Tipping is an odd practice primarily because it is common and expected in some professions and not at all in others. As adults, we become accustomed to tipping in the normal day in day out activity of our business and private lives.
But when it comes to tipping on a business trips, its best to think about the use of tipping as a common courtesy in light of your business trip and how it can be used to benefit you during the trip. To do that, think about the tip as a practice and why we tip. For the most part we do it because it is expected. If we think about how we tip at all, it is in the context that the tip is part of the server’s income and we want to help someone who did a good job for us.
But one of the best justifications for tipping comes down to nothing more than building a low level business relationship with the server so you can expect good service the next time you need it. On a business trip, you develop a lot of very short lasting relationships. But you want the best from those who can make your trip and your accommodations enjoyable and uneventful.
So if there is a hotel restaurant that you will be eating in each day, you know you will see that waiter and the staff of that restaurant again. A good tip policy can go a long way to assure that your service will be top notch every time you dine in that restaurant. This same principle applies to leaving a little tip for the cleaning crew who takes care of your room.
I had a situation in a fine hotel where I wanted the staff to leave me more than one package to make coffee in my in room coffee maker each day. Sure, I could have gone out and bought my own coffee. But on a business trip, you depend on being served so you can focus on your mission. So I left a note to the cleaning crew along with a nice tip. Each day I had more than the number of coffee packages left for me. Everybody wins in that situation.
Tipping is not a difficult skill to master. When tipping for a meal, you can write the tip directly onto your bill. Now when you order room service, there may be a question as to whether you should give the delivery person a tip for bringing the food. Often room service charges a fee for the service already. So in theory, you don’t need to tip that person. But remember, you may want good service in subsequent nights or in future stays. So slipping a tip to that delivery service person just to make sure they know that you appreciate good service makes sense.
When tipping taxi drivers or the hotel doorman, it’s appropriate to fold the money in the palm of your hand and hand it to him or her in the form of a handshake. If they are holding the door for you, they will look down to see you are giving a tip when your hand moves out. That moment of contact is important so they look at you and know you recognize their good service and remember you for future reference.
The amount of tips is pretty much standard. 15% is a standard tip for most meals or for the taxi drive. $1 per bag is standard for a doorman or bellhop who is helping you with your bags. Now if you only have one bag, it might be a good idea to bump that up a bit. Never tip with change, always with folded bills.
Preparing for tipping as you travel is part o your preparations. You should assure you have plenty of small denomination bills even before you leave for the airport, as it is common to need to tip shuttle drivers and waiters at the airport or even the stewardess on board the airplane if you buy a drink from her (or him). As your business trip progresses, keep an eye on your cash levels so you have plenty of spare cash for additional tipping. Business travel is a tipping intensive experience and you should be prepared so you don’t find yourself embarrassed and unable to reward those who make your trip more enjoyable along the way.