How to Develop Lasting Customer Loyalty.

How To Develop Lasting Customer Loyalty.

Do you have trouble making money in your business? Do you not seem to be able to get people to buy from you? And the few who do…do they rarely if ever make a repeat sale…much less demonstrate any deep loyalty to your business?

You’ve heard the business slang flying around the internet. You know, words like ‘CRM’ (Customer Relationship Management) that we’re supposed to spend thousands of dollars on to learn how to develop wonderful customer loyalty…deepen trust…to get repeat business.

Customer retention in key. If you don't keep your customers happy, who will? Your competitors will. Why spend all the money to get a customer but not retain them?

And yes…it is true. All of those things are important. But it is so easy to get caught up in the details that we often lose sight of the ‘BIG’ picture. We swallow the camel while
straining at the gnat.

While I believe that CRM and all those other things are very important for running a business, we just need to use a little common sense.

I know…I know…you’re going to tell me that common sense isn’t so common in most businesses this day and age. And you would be right.

But before I get to the point, let me try to illustrate what I mean with a short story. Maybe it will help clarify what I am getting at.

I had an employee I ended up firing due to some rather ‘unloyal’ actions on his part. He soon got a job with one of my competitors…which turned out to be a really beneficial
thing for me as he kept me up-to-date on what was going on over there.

He lives just a few houses down the street from me and would come by every once in while to say ‘hey’ and shoot the breeze. Once he came by and told me about this big seminar that he was going to be attending.

His boss was paying for his ‘ridiculously’ priced ticket to some ‘CRM’ seminar. The idea was that they wanted everyone in the company to learn how to manage their customers.

Right?

S anyway, after all is said and done, I asked him how it went. He said it went great. But the only problem they were having was that his boss wouldn’t implement any of things
they had learned there.

Listen! They had spent a lot of money to send the whole staff to this fantastic (expensive) seminar, but then wouldn’t let the employees put anything they learned into practice. Can
anyone say ‘common sense’?

Sometimes, we (yes, I am included here) get so bogged down with all of the little things we need to do that we lose our focus.

If you want to ‘manage your customer relationships’ just keep it simple.

Think ‘Golden Rule’ simple.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”

Can you imagine how loyal your customers and clients would be if you treated them like you would want to be treated all of the time?

Uh huh!

So, take a few moments to sit down and imagine yourself walking into your business. How would you most likely be treated vs. the way you would want to be treated?

Think about ways to wow your customers and give them more than they bargained for.

Do you really want loyal customers or not?

You say you do…but your actions don’t show it now.

Do they?

So, simplify your life of all that ‘fancy CRM’ stuff you deal with…and get into your customer’s shoes. Give them the experience of a lifetime. They will give you the lifetime of
loyalty you seek in return.

One way to do that is with a customer incentive program. Build your customer loyalty now.

The Psychology of Employee Motivation

The Psychology of Employee Motivation

Managers in all industries, now more than ever, are looking for effective ways to motivate employees in order to build a sustainable and resilient company foundation. In order to create employees that are motivated enough to grow and engage customers, companies must understand motivation as a human need and how it applies to a work setting.

Employee motivation is an essential ingredient to achieving success within your organization; motivated employees directly correlate to performance, job satisfaction, and employee retention. As a result, the ability to motivate and engage employees is a vital and necessary skill for managers in any industry.

Before managers can effectively implement an employee motivation program, they must understand, one, the nature of motivation and its implications, and two, what being motivated looks and feels like with regard to their employees.

To understand motivation and its implications, managers need to be aware of people and how they think. For this, we pose the question: “What does psychology, the study of human mind and behavior, tell us about motivation?”

In psychology, the term “motivation” can be defined simply as the reason for engaging in a particular behavior; basically, motivation is the “why” behind any given action. A vast amount of research concerning motivation theory has been conducted over the course of decades, with many diverging theories. Despite this, however, there are three generally accepted schools of thought in regard to motivational psychology. The first, attributed to Sigmund Freud, is known as “Theory X.” This theory assumes the worst motives in people, adopting the pessimistic perspective that people are lazy and lack ambition; they are self-seeking, avoid work at all costs, and do the bare minimum. The implications drawn from Freud’s viewpoint necessitate motivating employees through external factors such as reward, manipulation, or punishment.

Douglas McGregor developed a second theory which is known as “Theory Y.” McGregor assumed the best motives in people, and optimistically believed people to be genuinely interested in work, learning, and overall self-improvement. His theory implicates that people are internally motivated and work for themselves, not out of fear or reward; thus negating any need for externally motivating factors.

Finally, a third major motivation theory is Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” The basic principle behind this theory is that human beings are motivated by meeting their most pressing needs first. Maslow’s hierarchy contains five levels, and, theoretically, each successive level can only be attained by meeting those beneath it. They are (in order from lowest to highest): physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. According to Maslow, employees’ lower level needs would have to be met in order for them to achieve a higher functioning level of motivation.

The theory, or combination of theories, managers ascribe to will directly affect how they motivate their employees. So, the imperative question now becomes: “How will these motivational approaches make employees feel, and consequently, perform?”

As observed by Freud and McGregor, generally speaking, motivation can feel one of two ways — positive or negative – as employees are motivated both by negative and positive factors. For example, a negative motivating factor is fear – fear of failure, fear of losing favor, fear of losing a job. If an employee is being consistently motivated by fear, he feels unsatisfied, under-appreciated, and ineffective. Conversely, if an employee is motivated by positive factors like a desire to gain appreciation, or even better, to share in the success of the company or team, he will experience satisfaction, worth, and increased productivity.

If an organization adopted Maslow’s approach to motivation, it would seek to meet the most basic needs of their employees in order to equip them for higher levels of performance. While providing resources to meet one’s physiological needs such as food, shelter, and clothing is as simple as writing a paycheck, helping employees achieve higher levels like social and self-esteem needs are more complicated. Still, these needs can be remedied through various vehicles like employee interaction and genuine praise, appreciation, and recognition from supervisors. If an organization can free their employees from the pressures of fulfilling lower level needs, their employees will feel comfortable and capable to operate at their greatest potential.

In conclusion, managers must act as motivators. The question is: How can you be an effective one? Research often finds that internal motivating factors prove more effective than any externally motivating force. The goal, then, is for organizations and managers to create environments where

To learn how to motivate and retain your key employees, click here

Motivate Your Employees Without A Lot Of Cash Out Of Your Pocket

“Motivate Your Employees Without A Lot Of Cash Out Of Your Pocket”

Let’s face facts. It is hard to run a business in this day and age. Not only is money tight everywhere you look but it is getting harder to find quality employees who are willing to make the grade when it comes to sales. You need to have employees who are doing all they should be plus a little more to make your business successful in every way. The real question is, how does one make that happen?

Well in most cases business owners try to provide more money as far as salary and bonuses are concerned. However, one must wonder if this really does the trick. After all, if the employee gets more money for simply going through the motions, why should they do any more then that? That is the real downfall to raising salaries without having something in return.

What you are really looking to do is motivate your employees to make sure they are getting the job done and going above and beyond the call of duty. Now you could spend thousands of dollars and send them all to a seminar hosted by some over priced, capped teeth, infomercial reject and hope that does the trick. In most cases this will do nothing more then make the employees resent you for taking away their free time to go to the seminar.

There is a solution that will work. What about offering an incentive program for those that reach a certain goal? Sure, you say, and I am made of money. Well you do not have to be made of money to create a winning motivational reward program that will have the employees jumping at every chance to win.

The solution is all about travel and vacations. Who does not love the chance to get away? We all do. Seeking out some peace and quiet, away from the rigors of the daily grind. Your employees are no different. They would love the chance to get away and you can now give that to them without spending a load of cash.

The secret to this system is in the packages or vouchers. Instead of paying for a vacation out of pocket you simply buy a package deal by way of a travel voucher and award the winning employee with that. Sound simple? Too good to be true? Well it is simple, and it is true.

Using a company like that deals in travel vouchers only, you can easily create a high quality vacation employee motivational program and save a lot of money doing it.

You want to make sure that you are purchasing in bulk only. Buying these kind of deals by the piece will cost you more money then you could have ever imagined. The more vouchers you purchase the better the deal becomes. In many cases the companies offer volume discounts when you make a larger purchase. So instead of purchasing enough for one round of incentive programs you should go with two or more. With that you will get the best deal and save a good amount of money in the process.

Employee Incentive: Use vacation incentive as lure for Employee Incentives

“Employee Incentives” Use lure of vacation as Employee Incentives”

There are certain things that an employer can do to ensure that the employees they have are performing to the best of their ability. One of those things is to offer the employees certain incentives for reaching a certain level of productivity and usefulness. This is something that will not cost the employer a lot of money and can actually be the first stepping stone to reaching certain financial goals.

Vacation packages are one of the most powerful of all incentive programs that is currently known. Do not let anyone tell you that you can make more with a monetary based program. Money may be nice to the people but they will work harder and much better if they know they can earn some time away from the workplace and not have to pay for it.

Let’s take a look at the top destinations for these employee incentive programs and see where you might like to send your top employees when they come through for you.

Hawaii is one of the best choices for the employees in your employ. Not only is this area one of the most beautiful in the world, but it is also one of the most stress free locations. Those who vacation here are found to be far more rested when they return, taking the best of the world with them to the sandy beaches and tropical climate.

Florida is also highly popular with people on vacation. This is popular with the business type as there are thousands of wonderful golf courses, beaches and world class entertainment. The climate is great for a vacation during the winter months and can provide some much needed relief from the hustle of everyday work schedules.

If you are looking for the location where one can enjoy the nice climate and the chance to meet the rich and famous then look no further then California. This state features the largest concentration of stars that the world has ever seen and has that wonderful weather to go along with it.

Lastly one could set a course for Las Vegas for some desert living. Take along a few bucks and try your hand in one of the many casinos or perhaps just take in some of the wonderful shows. What could be better then the entertainment and excitement that Las Vegas brings to the table?

Now you may be saying that you could never afford to send your employees to any of these destinations but that is just not true. Thanks to the innovation of vacation vouchers there is nothing that is impossible when it comes to travel. These vouchers offer either a free vacation or deep discounts on such things as airfare and resort accommodations. Either way you go you are creating a great incentive for your employees to work harder for you.

You have the choice through most of the vacation voucher companies. They offer a wide variety of choices that will allow you to make an informed decision on what is best for your incentive program.

Corporate Incentive Program: What is the value?

“Corporate Incentive Program”

Incentive programs are a great way to reward employees. When you reward your employees they feel that they are part of the company and try their best to achieve goals. Corporate incentive programs are designed to reward the employees and also the customers. To have reward programs for customers helps in building a good relationship and makes them permanent customers. Creating customer loyalty is one of the main things in sales, so that customers keep coming back and also refer to their friends and relatives about the products. Customers help in creating a brand and by rewarding them they become a loyal customer and it is rightly said that customer is the king. Customer appreciation is a very good way to retain loyal customers.

Every company, which provides corporate incentive programs, should recognize employee achievements and no bias should be shown towards them. Corporate incentive program increases performance of the employees and motivates the sales force. Sales is one the main tasks of a company and all other departments depend on sales for future growth and expansion and sales people are always provided with incentives.

Increasing productivity and sales revenue is one of the main goals of a company. Every company does not want to hire more and more employees to increase productivity instead of that they want to increase the productivity with the same number of employees. For this they plan corporate incentive programs aimed to get the maximum out of the employees. Improving the overall productivity and reducing the workplace turnover helps in making more profits for the company. Individual and team efforts should be recognized so that employees are always motivated. There are lots of incentive programs, which can be incorporated by a company for its employees. The performance-based incentive is one of the best ways to improve productivity. Employees are the backbone of the company and treating them with dignity helps the company in achieving the set targets.

There are lots of incentive programs, which a company could choose. It is best to involve the employees in planning incentive programs. Some of the corporate incentive programs are Sales Representative Recognition Programs, Customized Sales Incentive Contest,
Sales Incentive Programs, Contest Incentives, Customer Incentives,
Performance Incentive Rewards, Celebrity Sweepstakes, Super Bowl Contests, Staff Incentives, Air Travel, Cruises, Vacation Getaways, Incentive Marketing Programs etc.
A company can incorporate any of these incentive programs, which would help in improving the employee’s morale and productivity.