I attended a seminar on the topic of how to buy customers presented by Brad Sugars fromActionCoach and felt that I should share some of his principles.

How to buy customers:

1. Brad said that we need to think globally – are our websites geared for international visitors?
2. Buy lifetime customers, people that keep returning to buy more of your products and new offerings.
3. He also stated that there is no way to kill a SME quicker than to discount or be the cheapest.
4. Question: How many pages is your marketing plan? And how many hours do you spend on marketing?
5. Any marketing plan must start with a calendar.
6. How many customers we need?
7. Marketing IS an investment! Not an expense.
8. Marketing is Math, we need to measure and test all the time
9. Have a referral strategy.
10. Work out how fast you need to grow, and design your marketing plan around it.
11. Business is people, and we need to understand it.
12. Know the value of your business, there are 2 ways to make money from a business: one is the month to month income and two is the money from the sale of it.
13. Your marketing plan:
    1.Who is your target audience?
    2.What are you offering them?
    3.What medium will you use to market to them?
14. The emotional value of a product outweighs it benefits.
15. Websites:
    1.Have more than one, one for each marketing campaign
    2.Content is king, have lots of it.
    3.Need to be interactive and easy to use
    4.At least 10 pages
    5.Should be Search Engine Optimized
16. Social Media
    1.Database of your customers and prospects
    2.Have a page for all target audiences
    3.Rules:
    3.1.Be social
    3.2.Interact
    3. 3.Sell softly
    3.4.Add Value
    3.5.Have a database to automate marketing.
17. Referrals:
    1.Make it easy to refer
    2.Make an offer to referrals
    3.Treat the referrer special
    4.Thank them for referrals
18. Get Alliances
    1.Build relationships with businesses that can refer to you
19. Some last advise from Brad:
    1.Never wish your life was easier but that you were better
    2.Work harder on yourself than on your businesses

This is business advice from a man who has become a multi-millionaire by building an empire out of several small businesses. These are principles that have been tried and tested, and has proven that success is possible.