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Almost every business owner or manager will tell you that having loyal customers is the key to a successful business.  If that’s true then what are they doing to keep those customers coming back?

Most will tell you that they send emails or newsletters on a regular basis to keep in touch.  Others will say that they use a discount program to show their appreciation.

It’s not to say that these are bad things but they are not enough.  To create loyalty and get your customer engaged with you takes effort and planning.  Creating strong relationships is one of the most critical ways to retain more of your customers and grow your business faster because happy customers` will use you more and refer friends which will give you a tremendous competitive edge over your competitions.

Here are some statistics showing that challenges that businesses face today:

• Each year the average company loses 10-15% of its customer base
– Bain & Company
• “84% of customers who leave, do so because of poor service”
– Forum Corp
• “A typical business only hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers—the other 96% leave, 91% for good”
– Jim Barnes, “Secrets of CRM”

By understanding why your customers are leaving you and how you can retain them is priceless information.  The best way to find out what they want is to ask them, read the article ” You Just Need To Ask ” 11/19/2010

The sooner you know what makes your customers tick, the sooner you can begin to cultivate a strong and long lasting relationship to keep your business alive in any economy.

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About The Author:

	Mike Liddicoat is a Husband, Father, Speaker and the Sales & Marketing Director of AttaBoy! Solutions. His goal is to help businesses maintain relationships, ensure future business and acquire new referrals through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.
Contact Mike

When it comes time to get a gift for a family member or friend how do you decide what to get.  Well you take into consideration their likes and dislikes, hobbies or interests.

You choose something that, based on your intimate knowledge of them, you know they will enjoy.

But what about when it comes to business gifts?  How do you make a good choice when you may not know that much personal information about your recipient?  One way is to guess.  Get a gift and hope for the best.  However, you may not get them a memorable gift or a gift they can use.  It might just be something they will toss away or give to somebody else.

The best  choice for a gift is one that the recipient makes for themselves.  But how do you do that?

Easy!  Our Gift Collections make giving business gifts and incentives easy by offering the Gift of Choice. With these collections, recipients choose their own gift from a wide selection of top-quality, brand-name merchandise by redeeming them online. It’s the perfect solution for small to mid-size businesses – and virtually every budget, occasion, and event!

How do they work?

It’s simple and convenient for your business. You just:

1. CHOOSE the budget range you want to stay within.
2. BUY a Gift Collection on line or from your sales associate.
3. GIVE the gift to the recipient to redeem for their perfect gift!

Then, the recipient:

1. DISCOVERS and browses their Gift Collection online.
2. SELECTS the perfect gift from the many name-brand items.
3. RECEIVES the gift shipped right to their door, free of charge.

Here are some occasions when these Gift Collections work amazingly well:

• Sales incentives
• Holidays
• Employee weddings/new baby
• Customer thank you
• New customer welcome
• Corporate events
• Promotions
• Service awards
• Employee acknowledgment
• Safety awards

Here is what these Gift Collections can do for your business?

They can be given to employees, co-workers, supervisors, managers, customers, business associates, and service providers to help:

• Increase productivity
• Generate sales increases
• Improve morale
• Strengthen employee performance
• Create a safer workplace
• Inspire great ideas and suggestions
• Develop loyalty and dedication
• Enhance work environment

Why give these Gift Collections?

Well they have been rewarding, motivating, and inspiring employees and customers for nearly 40 years, and they are trusted by businesses because they offer:

• 180-day Satisfaction Guarantee
• Easy online redemption
• Popular brand-name gifts
• No minimum order required
• Monetary value not displayed to recipient
• Saves the time and expense of shopping for gifts

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About The Author:

	Mike Liddicoat is a Husband, Father, Speaker and the Sales & Marketing Director of AttaBoy! Solutions. His goal is to help businesses maintain relationships, ensure future business and acquire new referrals through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.
Contact Mike

Can you believe it’s been a year?

Anniversaries are very important milestones. Whether it’s a wedding anniversary or a business anniversary, neither should be overlooked. Both are meant to be celebrated!

Recognizing a wedding anniversary can be tricky business. In the personal realm, generally you are in fairly good contact with friends and/or family and know what’s happening in their personal life. This makes it much easier when sending a card or gift. However, since business may be a little more removed, you should be much more cautious if you plan to acknowledge wedding anniversaries. It wouldn’t look too good to send an anniversary card only to discover later that the marriage had ended.

For businesses, it is much safer to celebrate anniversaries related to the customer or employee relationships. Recognize customers for one or more years of doing business with your company. Or acknowledge the number of years an employee has been with you.

When choosing a gift to send, it’s okay to give something a little more personal for a wedding anniversary. Just be sure to give something that both the husband and wife would appreciate. For a business anniversary, you are better off to have a planned out award program based on years of service -especially for your employees. This will avoid any problems of one employee receiving something the perceive as less than what someone else received in the past. On the other hand, you have more flexibility with your customers. Gifts can be based on the volume of business a customer does with your company or any number of other factors.

Taking the time to take notice and make a big deal of both personal and business anniversaries will mean alot to both your customers and your employees… and will go a long way towards earning their appreciation and continued loyalty.
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally

Although it might sound funny to some, the time to start planning for the holidays is now – especially where business is concerned. Most companies start putting together their holiday budget in the 3rd Quarter. Although it has nothing to do with the “Christmas in July” phrase, I have always found it quite timely.

Now is the time to start thinking about what message you want to send your clients, your employees, your vendors, etc. Do you want to say “Thank You!” amidst the Thanksgiving holiday or during the Christmas season. A great way to separate your business from all the others is to send a “Thanks for your business this past year” gift a bit early, before it has the chance of being lost in the rush of the other holiday gifts your clients will be receiving. Or plan a special beginning of the year gift giving with a special message letting your customers know you look forward to working with them in the coming year.

Which ever you decide, do something. Do something special, plan ahead and put some thought into it. Don’t wait until the last minute. Your advanced planning will pay off in several ways -early planning means less stress during the holidays, better selection and more time to come up with some great ideas, and better pricing. Best of all, your business associates and clients will notice your extra efforts and that can make a huge difference.
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally

Good business gifts can help to strengthen the relationship. Bad gifts can just as easily break them. And no one wants to be known as the person who gave someone a lousy business gift.

According to an article in the Salt Lake City Tribune, almost half of all employees that participated in a survey about business gifts disliked what they received. The survey indicated the following:

• 59% said they did not keep the gift
• 48% did not like the gift given
• 41% said they threw the gift away
• 32% felt the gift was not useful
• 24% felt the gift was cheap
• 22% said they gave the gift to someone else

“Paper weights and calendars… with coffee mugs, stuffed animals, pens, hams and fruitcakes” were at the top of the list of bad gifts according to the article.

There is a lesson to be learned here -and it’s not ‘skip giving gifts, people are just ungrateful anyways’. Business gifts are important and when properly selected can create results that will benefit your business. The lesson here is to give gifts that are considered valuable to the people receiving them.
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally

Nothing in life is free. Or at least that’s what I tell my kids… I often use this phrase to teach them to look deeper into something versus taking it at face value (or based on what the T.V. commercial says).

Earlier this evening, I had the privilege of participating on an ad-hoc advisory board. I had this opportunity a while back and really enjoyed it, therefore I was looking forward to this one. The true value I saw in both was that they were both designed as a focus group. Both included a mix of trusted business associates, clients, staff and friends where the business owner respected and valued their opinions. While I, and everyone else that participated, would have probably done so for “free” -both host companies made sure we were compensated.

Now most people reading this will hear compensation and think money. However, compensation does not necessarily mean monetary value. And often compensation can mean so much more when it’s not cash. In both instances food was provided. They were both informal and gave the participants a chance to meet and network with each other. One provided gifts for each participant that attended and one utilized raffle tickets and awarded several prizes. Both made sure to acknowledge their appreciation for the help and input offered. I can only speak for myself, but I believe that all the participants felt honored to be included as a part of these elite groups.

Obviously, there were benefits to everyone involved. The business owners received invaluable input and advice for their business and the participants received food, prizes and/or gifts and the esteem compliment of being invited follow by a sincere expression of gratitude and appreciation. Truly a win-win situation for all.

Want more information, read “Creating an Advisory Board” by Susan Ward on About.com
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About The Author:

Sally Liddicoat is a Wife, Mother, Speaker and the Founder & CEO of AttaBoy! Solutions. Her goal is to help businesses increase sales, generate ongoing referrals, strengthen relationships and create loyal customers and employees through appreciation marketing. Throughout this blog you can sign up for updates, news, special offers, discounts and more. So take a look around, leave a comment or two and enjoy.

Contact Sally