5 MUST Do's to Grow Your Promo Biz

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2 All Rights Reserved Copyright 2014 Promoz & Team Promoz. All rights are reserved. You may not distribute this report in any way. You may not sell it, or reprint any part of it without written consent from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Disclaimer The suggestions, information and resources in this report are made in a general nature and towards the benefit of promotional product distributors and entrepreneurs. By no means are they representative of the exact steps YOU should take in order to increase YOUR business. Please take them as examples and samples and do your due diligence before implementing anything suggested. The income statements, testimonials, and examples in this report are exceptional results, and are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results. Each individual's success depends on his or her desire, dedication, marketing background, market place, product, service, effort and motivation to work and follow programs and advice. There is no guarantee you will duplicate the results stated here. You recognize any business endeavor has inherent risk for loss of capital.

3 Hello and thanks for downloading our free report on the "Five Must Do's" to grow your promotional product business. This is just a short overview of some of the ideas and proven techniques that we share with our team. I'm a "no nonsense" type of gal, who states things the way they are and from my own personal experience. The report is named "Five Must Do's", but there's way more than five within this document! Sadly, many people believe if they tell a few people that they do promotional products & branded apparel, put up a website or build a Facebook page, the people will come. Your promo biz is not like the movie "Field of Dreams" "If you build it they will come". Must Do #1 Keep Your Funnell Fullll! You put a lot of prospects into the funnel, and as the funnel shape indicates, the orders come out the bottom. You cannot put up a website and "hope" they come. You cannot go out one day and talk to businesses and expect everyone to buy. You must find ways to touch many businesses, everyday without fail, especially in the beginning. I have found the highest form of reaching new customers is to walk in the door of a business. I know a lot of you don't like to do cold calls or think that's old-school, and you're right, it's old-school. But here's the scenario, and I told my husband this years ago when I asked him to give up his profitable business to come to work with me. I told him if things got so slow that I couldn't make the mortgage payment that I'd get back in the car and go make calls. Luckily I haven't had to do that, but I know from personal experience that my "closing the deal" percentage is much higher when I meet with somebody face-to-face versus any other form of communication. No one is going to buy from you until they know, like and trust you, and the fastest way to do that is to meet someone face-to-face.

4 Think about this. You pick up the phone and call Mary Jane and say "this is who I am and this is what I do and who do I need to speak to, who in your office buys this stuff"? She tells you we don't use that stuff and that's the end of that period. Instead, you walk in and Mary Jane is writing with a logoed pen, wearing a logoed shirt & there's a calendar hanging on the wall from another business. Your conversation can now go "Hi Mary Jane my name is so-and-so and I do things like the pen your writing with and the shirt you're wearing. I see you use these types of promotional items to grow your business and brand awareness". She may reply back with "Yes we get this stuff out of a catalog that is mailed to us". Now, you get to reply back with, "Are you happy with the service that you're receiving"? This usually draws a blank stare as people don't understand the word "service" anymore. This has now opened the up the conversation, and you can reply back with: Are they bringing you fresh new ideas on a consistent basis? Are they giving you good competitive pricing? Are they helping you to develop programs that insure your business success and match your company goals? When you're finished, don't forget that calendar hanging on the wall to ask for a referral. I see from the calendar on your wall you do business with...! A perfect lead-in would be "I see you do business with ABC Plumbing down the street. Do you think that would be a good place for me to visit? Is there someone there you know that I could ask for"? Now go to ABC Plumbing, and say "Mary Jane down at XYZ told me I should check-in with you about your calendar business"! How are you going to do that on the phone or through an ? If you go out and make these types of calls just one day, I promise you, you're more likely to get responses like "I'm so glad you're here, we have a trade show coming up next month." or "Do you carry anything for a golf tournament coming up, and I completely forgot about it!" Now prospecting by other avenues is also very important. Some other ways are: marketing Direct mail - like monthly or quarterly newsletters social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Meet up, Twitter and so on leads and networking groups the telephone trade shows referral program Now, look back over your calendar from last week and add them up. How many clients and prospects did you meet with face to face? How many people did you talk to about your business? How many did you qualify? How many did you follow up with? How many new prospects did you add? Trust me, you won't achieve 100K+ a year, or even make a little extra money, if you don't prospect. You won't get to no more prospecting with people calling you and consistent reorders and awesome referrals, unless you make prospecting THE most important part of your business, especially in the beginning.

5 Must Do #2 Connect wiith your clliients & prospects every way you can! So now you've met a prospect, or, even better, you have a new client! You put them in your database and then what? For most people, that's it. They put the order in and move onto the next "to do". What I recommend is that you connect with them on every level possible. With the Internet and all the social networking platforms, there's so many other ways to connect than in person! If you have a client that's in your database, (hopefully you have a true database program) and they change their or move to a new job and you've been sending them newsletters for the last year, how will you know about their exciting change? By staying in touch with them through social media you'll know what's going on with them! LinkedIn for example, will send you an ! So get connected on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. Then when they change jobs you'll get notified! This will trigger two things for you to do Congratulate them & ask about the possibility of attracting yet another client and also to reconnect with the current business and find out who the new buyer is! Many promotional product people are not proactive in staying in touch. They think that if they call every so often, or send an once a month, that people will remember them and continue to buy from them. Unfortunately this is just not the case. And when you get connected on these social networking platforms be mindful of what you are posting. We delve into this in great detail with our team, but here's a couple winning ideas to keep in mind: Learn everything you can about each one of these social platforms from the experts out there. Quit selling and only share ideas, case histories, and successful promotions! Don't just post ~ actually engage other people. Make comments on their pages, ask questions and for heaven sakes be sincere & don't act desperate. Most important if you put up a LinkedIn profile for example, make sure to log in frequently. Nothing worse than getting a message from someone, and you reply back a week later! You just blew your first impression!

6 Must Do #3 Get Locall & Get Found! Here's five simple things you can do to increase your web presence, yet get local. Get your Google Local listing done! Your Google Local listing will highlight your business in your local area. Go through the tutorial and follow the instructions! Post pictures and keywords especially the name of your city! Most people will type in the city or state when looking for a promotional products professional as they still do want to buy from someone local! Buy a domain name that has your city or state in it! Domain names are cheap. Redirect those domain names to your main website, or specific pages within your website that target those keywords. For example, if you love to develop golf tournament promotions, you might go buy the domain name Also by your own personal name.com! Get a Facebook Fan page up! Now that Google and Facebook are in "love" with each other you'll notice that when searching in Google, many times the Facebook link (and LinkedIn) are ranked higher than a website or blog. Facebook isn't just for sharing pictures with your family anymore! Get into local groups online in LinkedIn & Meet Up. Join groups & engage members. Meeting just one new person a week is very powerful. There's lots of great tutorials out there on how to use all the social networking sites to grow your business. The key point is be engaged! Make sure to congratulate people who get promoted or get a new job. Make comments in conversations that are relevant and contribute to the conversation. Put your website and on everything! Put this info on your business cards, your signature block, all your PSA's (personal sales aids~ promo items that have your information on them). If you don't have any PSA's you better get some today! Check out the supplier Lanco for example. They have an amazing PSA program that anyone can afford. This goes without saying that you are in the promotional products business, you should have some promotional products with your name on them! Would you take your car to an auto mechanic that doesn't have a running vehicle?

7 Must Do #4 Evalluate & Adjjust Your Tiime I'm assuming that most of you work from your home. If you've got time to watch The Price is Right, you're just not serious about your promo biz! Sure, you have to take the kids to the dentist or get your own teeth cleaned, but do you visit the businesses that are in the building of your dentist? Do you get up each morning with a game plan of what's going to go on that day? What calls do you have to make today? What quotes do you need to get done today? Do you complete your top money making tasks first? Do you complete similar tasks at the same time to be more efficient? Meaning, are all of your phone calls done at one time? Do you prepare all your quotes at one time? Do artwork all at the same time? How much time each week are you spending on improving your knowledge and skill sets to advance in this market? Do you prospect every single day? What I can tell you from my own experience is that being an entrepreneur is not easy. You must be disciplined. Do only money making activities during the work day. You must evaluate your time, with a laser focus on growing your business. What can you accomplish in 5 minutes? What can you accomplish and 15 minutes? What can you delegate? Do you have a system in place for every aspect of your promo biz? Great test: Download this 2 week tracker. Print it. Write down everything you do~ all day~ for 2 weeks. You might surprise yourself with how much time is being wasted or how grouping similar tasks together you can get more time out of your day!

8 Must Do #5- Follllow-up and Follllow-Through! It always amazes me how many people don't follow up and follow through. They meet someone at a networking group and they have an interest in a product. They say they'll get back with them. And they do, but it's five days later or not at all! Or they wait until the next month's meeting! Or they spend several hundred dollars to attend a trade show to share their promotional products and branded apparel. They collect business cards and names of people who are potential clients and then never follow-up! If you don't have a game plan for the follow-up, just save your money and stay home. You should advise your clients of this too! Follow up after the sale! Make sure to connect with them to see if their promotional product was perfect. If it's not perfect, you need to make it right RIGHT AWAY! Let them know when their order is going to ship! People appreciate this! Connect with them again on a regular basis. If their promotional product was for an event, make sure that you have a follow-up appointment on your calendar for next year about the same time. Easy enough to follow up with someone and simply ask "Are you going to be doing that event again this year?". When you send a proposal or quote, make sure to follow-up to ensure they received it. Then follow-up again after the decision should have been made. Are you, at the very least, sending a thank you card after a client gives you their business? You'll need to follow up consistently & more than once and by more than one method! If a client didn't reply to an , after a couple of days pick up the phone. If you connected via LinkedIn, that would be another option. Maybe send a postcard after several attempts! All too many times, people make one phone call or send one and assume that's it!

9 Bonus Must Do: Join groups and organizations that are in your town! While you might get some business from your local church or PTO of your kids school, I'm talking about leads groups (proprietary groups of sales professionals who come together on a weekly basis to assist each other in growing their businesses by connecting with other members networks) or networking groups like the Chamber, the Better Business Bureau, or a Homebuilders Association. Groups like that will put you in direct contact with business owners!! Attending networking and leads groups will help you on many levels. They will help you: Develop a fantastic 30 second commercial to introduce yourself & your products. Introduce you to many people at one time. Help you keep a pulse on your local economy. Help you build YOUR OWN Referral Network! The more people who know about your business, the more business you will write. The more you educate people about your business, the more they'll become your cheerleaders, promoting you to their business contacts. The more people you know in other industries, the more you can refer business to them. Making you the go to person! Some words of caution here. Don't join more than one proprietary "leads" group. If you belong to two and both have a chiropractor, which one do you recommend? If you offered two names you're basically making those two chiropractors compete. You have to live by "know, like & trust". If you can't say with confidence "This is who I know, like and trust" you'll look wishy washy! Don't get involved in so many groups that you don't allow time for prospecting and meeting with current clients. Don't get involved on the board level or committee teams until you have been there at least a year! Many people believe that they have to join and jump in with both feet, but remember what your goal is: Your goal is to connect with as many people as possible to build that know, like and trust factor so that you can gain more business!

10 If you found these " Must Do's" helpful, let us know! If you're unhappy with how your promo biz is going, don't give up! We should talk! We o er a complimentary discovery session. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! I promise, it'll be worth your time. We can help you grow your promotional product business into the business you've always dreamed of! It doesn't matter where you are in your business right now. What matters is that you start taking action towards what you really want! Here's to creating and enjoying the promo biz and life of your dreams! Cyndi Stout, Team Promoz Cyndi@promoz.com P.S. While still owning your own business, we o er Yearly Bonuses, free support & training, free invoicing, no big contract, Extensive EQP List, National Convention, Online ordering, VIP Awards Trip, Paid Daily, Free Specials & Suppli er Catalogs PSA Specials, FREE LEADS and so much more! Written by Cyndi Stout, Owner of Team Promoz. Cyndi Stout is a self employed entrepreneur with over 25 years experience in the promotional products industry. She is in the Top 1% for Sales, The #1 Calendar Distributor & The #1 New Dealer Recruiter for Kaeser & Blair. She has helped hundreds of promotional professionals start and grow their business and has earned numerous awards & recognition for her e orts. She's happy to help you unleash your highest potential as well.