N is for Nurture

  The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here. 

A is for Ambition

B is for Business Plan

C is for Customer Connection

D is for Distractions

E is for Enterprise Evaluation

F is for Fatigue 

G is for Gratitude

H is for Harmony

I is for Introspection

J is for Join

K is for Karma

L is for Legality

M is for Marketing

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N is for Nurture

As you grow your business, you will need to nurture the many client relationships that you develop. The best way to do this is to actually be interested in them. Faking this relationship is going to have an advese effect on your bottom line. Be consistent in your approach with them. They have developed a certain level of trust in you and your brand based on how you have behaved with them in the past. They like you for what you have to offer, so continue to offer them the same value.

No one will buy from your social media pages, they will buy because they have a connection to you. Spend some time connecting with the pain points of your clients to understand how you can make your own offerings to them better. However, you must also dedicate some time to getting to know them personally. Where are they in life right now? Can you identify with their situation because you have been in the same place before? When you come from a space of pure understanding, it's much easier for you to understand their expected outcome when they use your products or services.

Being nurturing does not mean that you start offering discounts and price cuts to make them feel happy. This is not a tactic that works long term. In fact you are setting a dangerous precedence for your clients, where they will demand more bargain prices from you. When you are unable to undercut others in the same market, you will lose these clients. Make sure that you keep your brand value high enough by demanding what your product and services are worth. Don't undervalue yourself, to sell more to clients. 

Your nurturing practices have to be sustainable.

This means that you should be able to consistently repeat this nurturing behaviour without adversely affecting your sales and profit margins. What are some best practices to hold this nurturing behaviour with? Given in the exercise we are going to discuss a few practical ideas. Go ahead and customize it to your requirements.

The Exercise 

What You Will Need: A calendar reminder for different events, email templates to use for individual clients and mass mailings, 

When you first come in contact with them, get a way to get back in touch with them. They have a need which has brought them to you. It may not be clear what exactly the need is at first glance, but as you continue to interact with them, you will identify it. Having their contact information is vital to this process. It could be their phone number, or email. 

This list here deals with emails, but you can customize it to work equally well for WhatsApp messages. Once you have their email id, send them a single mail requesting their permission to put them on your newsletter mailing list. This is best done during the initial interaction when you get their contact details. If they say no, please respect their wishes. If they agree, you now have carte blanche to send them emails.

What should your emails contain? Each mail should offer some value to your client, not everything should be about drastic promotions. Here are some ideas that you can use:

• Send out inspirational emails with positive and uplifting stories.
• Capture birthdays with a free giveaway on your website, and then send them personalized greetings, along with a gift coupon for the products on your website.
• Share educational video links or articles written by others, they should usually be related to your product and services field.
• Offer old clients loyalty incentives when they stay with the newsletter for three, six or nine months.
• Add incentives for established clients to try out new products or services by giving them exclusive discounts.
• Thank clients for referrals with a small token of appreciation. This can come out of your slow moving stock.

Keeping in touch with your clients is vital for your business to survive. If someone has bought from your before they will buy from you again. As long as the need still exists. You may also be able to tempt them into purchasing an upgrade, or parallel item in your inventory, if you truly understand what they need.

M is for Marketing

 The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here. 

A is for Ambition

B is for Business Plan

C is for Customer Connection

D is for Distractions

E is for Enterprise Evaluation

F is for Fatigue 

G is for Gratitude

H is for Harmony

I is for Introspection

J is for Join

K is for Karma

L is for Legality

 ********
M is for Market

No matter how good your product is, or how useful your service, if people have not heard about it, it's not going to sell. This means that you have to ensure that you get the word of what you are doing out there to your potential market. You need to identify your "Ideal Client" who consist of your market, then then share your offerings with them, via marketing.

The mere word, marketing, tends to bring out extreme reactions from entrepreneurs. Most of the small business owners who are operating from home, feel that it's some sort of high level commerce concept which they can't handle. Nothing is further from the truth. Most Women Entrepreneurs have an inherent knack of building a relationship with their potential clients within minutes of meeting them. They also have the charm to nurture this relationship and turn them into returning clients.

Being a people's person helps, but having a strong ethic practice helps more. As your clients figure out that you always provide good quality, they will gladly spread the word to their friend circle. You should have your sales pitch practiced up before you attempt to speak with strangers, so that you are prepared to answer any questions that they may throw at you. This helps you to come across to potential clients as a level headed business woman, who knows what she's offering with clarity.

For instance, I remember ordering a cake from a home baker, She asked me a ton of questions about the number of people who would be consuming it, and recommended that for every kg of cake I would be able to serve 8 to 10 heads. I felt her task was done when she delivered it to me. Yet she had included a whole set of instructions on how much time before I served the cake I should bring it out of the fridge.  She also let me know how many days any remaining pieces could be safely stored in the fridge. While this was not required, it added value to the service that she provided. It made me feel that she took her business seriously and wanted to preserve the quality of her baked goods. Since she invoked trust in me, I was much more likely to order cakes from her the next time there was an occasion in the house.

The Exercise 

What You Will Need: A description of your products and services, a list of common questions clients may ask, and a good friend to practice your pitch on

Needless to say you should have a good idea of the pros and cons of exactly what you are selling. So sit down and make a list of all the features of your product. What are the points that you should highlight when you discuss this with a client? Write down possible pain points that your service is resolving. Now think up of questions that they may ask you. You need to have solid responses to any queries or doubts that they throw your way.

Once you have sorted all the facts out in your head, you need to practice describing your offerings. This is essentially pitching your products. Get a good friend of yours to help you. It's a lot more effective when you interact with a live human being rather than simply looking at your own face in the mirror while describing your pitch. Let them interrupt you, poke holes in your theories, and be a good sounding board. This will allow you to come up with more queries that may come up with an actual client.

You should be effectively able to pick up from the interruptions and clearly deliver the details of your offering. Besides letting them know what and when is being sold, you need to also add subtle reasons why they should buy from you. You don't need to oversell or hard sell your products or services, just bring up different scenarios in which they will be really useful. Always end on a personal note and ensure that they have a way to contact you. Exchanging phone numbers is a great way to do this.