Why You Need a Merchant Account

• Regina Baker

Why You Need a Merchant Account

Merchant accounts are a very important aspect to your business. This is a service that various specialty companies offer to business owners in order to handle the issue of payment and money transactions in a way that is most efficient. This type of account allows credit cards to go through the verification process, processes the payments that are issued for services and products in which a credit card is used, and also takes the funding and automatically credits your account with it. Here, you will be introduced to a few of the benefits that are associated with these accounts. The information here will help you to understand why you need a merchant account for your business.

The first, and most obvious, benefit to having a merchant account is that this will allow potential consumers to pay for their items by using any major credit card. In the online world, the consumer expects to have the ability to pay by credit card. In addition to this, your customers will also have the ability to make their purchases by way of a bank debit card that has a credit card logo attached to it. If you fail to have this ability in place, you will quickly discover that your business is not nearly as successful as it could be. However, if you transition from not having this type of account, and then switch to you, you will be amazed at how the profits roll in!

There is another very important reason why you need a merchant account. This is that customers want and need a way that they can securely make payments online. In today’s modern world, it is not uncommon for an individual to experience an issue with identity theft. By having this put into place, your customers will feel more at ease when it comes to buying from your website. They will not have the need to worry that their personal and financial information could be issued to the wrong person and they may lose money. In addition to this, it is also beneficial to you as the business owner. Online fraud is a common situation in which businesses lose money from every single day. This type of account can help in protecting your company from fraud.

The next reason why you need a merchant account is that it can assist you in the area of tracking the financial data that is associated with your business. This is an absolutely necessity for any and all business transactions. This is especially important when it comes to pulling your annual income for the purpose and intent of filing your business taxes. The merchant account will assist you in developing specific reports that are necessary to determine what money is available, what money is tied up, and how much in the area of profits is achieved.

As you can see, there are a number of reasons why you need a merchant account. The benefits alone speak for themselves. If you are looking for a way to automate your business, protect your customers from fraud, eliminate the potential for your business to experience fraud by customers, and optimize the profits that you experience, an online merchant account is an absolute necessity. Be certain to take all of the benefits mentioned here into consideration when it comes to determining why you need a merchant account

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• Regina Baker

How to Better Understand Your Customers

• Vera Raposo

Serving your customers should be foremost in any business owner’s mind but how do you know if you’re doing a good job? How do you know what you can improve upon?
Researching your customers is an important step to ensure your marketing message is communicated effectively.  However understanding your customers can be a real challenge.

Here are three great ways to get inside their minds:

#1  Eavesdrop.  This is easy if you own a brick and mortar business, however online eavesdropping is a bit more difficult.  Social marketing has made it possible to go where your market goes. Research online membership sites, blogs, forums and chat rooms on your subject matter and listen to what your potential clients are saying. Better yet, create your own forum or chat room on your own business website to give you instant information about what your customers need and want.

#2  Ask them.  Feedback from your customers is a valuable asset and there are a number of ways to obtain feedback. Post an online survey or quiz or even send a simple email asking for feedback can provide a wealth of information.  To increase your response rate, give away a free report or coupon. No matter how you get the feedback, read it all carefully and implement the changes they are looking for.

#3  Test and track.  Analytics often provide great customer insight.  You can easily see what web pages are viewed most often and how long a visitor stayed on your site, both of which may give insight to what they find valuable. The same can be said of an article that has thousands of click throughs and is forwarded many time; that article is valuable to your customer so you should provide more information like that.

Completing this customer research may sound boring but it’s a necessary step to improving your business. It’s also a great task to be outsourced! Getting inside your customer’s mind will help you create the best marketing messages and provide the best and most profitable products or services.

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• Vera Raposo

Three Thoughts on Better Affiliate Promotional Tools

Sure, it’d be terrific if we could recruit a handful of Super Affiliates that would sign up for our programs, take action and send us a flood of sales. If you’ve been an affiliate manager for any amount of time, you’ll know that life doesn’t work like this.

Most people who sign up for an affiliate program may not have huge resources at their disposal and may not have a lot of marketing savvy, but reach highly targeted markets that could collectively bring in a lot of new customers. It’s your job to create the promotional tools they can easily use to tap into the resources they have.

This coming Sweetie Saturday, I’m going to offer a free download with “28 Affiliate Promotional Tool Ideas”, but for now, here are 3 thoughts on creating better affiliate promo tools:

Affiliates like things easy. Give them as much copy-and-paste stuff as possible. Yes, they’ll often get better results by modifying the materials to suit their audience, but give them a starting point.

Ask your affiliates what they want. Keep the dialogue open between you and your affiliates. Be sure to ask them regularly what they need to promote your products and be willing to offer customized solutions.

Test your materials. Track the results of your various promotional materials and tweak and improve as you go along. The better the results, the more likely affiliates are to continue to promote for you.

Just a few things to consider for now. Feel free to share your own ideas and questions…and I’ll be back soon with those promised 28 ideas.

The Secret To Increasing Sales Volume

• Kit Singleton

Many new business owners have big dreams and ideas. They have great visions of their product or service selling like hot cakes. These visions may or may not pan out. It is possible for one product to fall short of sales expectations while a similar product breaks sales records. Whether you are a new business owner selling your first product or an experienced business owner, you want a high sales volume. To maximize your profits, you need to know the secret to increasing your sales volume.

Two factors play a role in increasing your sales volume. The first is product quality. Since you’ve been following Alice’s internet marketing advice, you are probably already familiar with what quality products should include. Let’s talk about the other factor, trust.

The Trust Factor

Sales are not solely based on the product or its benefits. Trust and the reputation of the business play a large part in the number of sales you make. According to Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks, “In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the promises made. Today, if you performed the same exercise, less than 10% of the public would believe the promises were true. The fracturing of trust happened because the consumer has been let down.”

There is nothing more important than developing customer trust. Unless customers feel that they can trust you to be as good as your word, you aren’t likely get the number of sales you want. Ideally, you want to build trust with customers before the sale. This can be done in a variety of ways, which include writing to your email list, business blogging, sharing testimonials from customers, granting interviews, etc. There is also another time when you can build trust and that is after the sale.

Are you ready for the secret? Here it is…

For many customers, what happens after the sale is just as important as the benefits of the product. A product, which includes customer support, will usually outsell a product which has poor or little support. Maintaining an excellent customer service department is one of the things that can make your sales skyrocket. It adds credibility to your business reputation while building trust with your customers.

Think of customer service as your own public relations department. When the person who handles that area has good “people skills,” a customer’s bad experience can be turned into a good one. They can also elevate a satisfied customer’s high opinion by taking time to answer questions. This means more sales for every product you offer.

Most of your customers will never need to contact your service center. Those who do may have a question or a problem that needs prompt attention. Some customers may be angry or frustrated when they contact you. This is when the quality of your customer service can mean the difference between having high sales or no sales.

From a customer’s perspective, there is almost nothing worse than buying a product only to find that the support for it stinks. Include good customer support with every product or service you sell and you’ll see your sales increase by leaps and bounds. By the way, feel free to share the secret to increasing your sales volume, but only with your closest friends.

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• Kit Singleton

Deja Vu? 7 Random & Weird Things about Me

A few days ago, J. Timothy King tagged me to participate in a 7 Random & Weird Things about Me meme. I actually think I’ve done this one before, but upon searching, I couldn’t find my post…so what the heck…I’ll play. Mr. King is actually a fiction writer and you can see his blog here.

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Here’s how this one works:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog; some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on each of their blogs. (Note from Alice: I’d leave this step out…see below for why)

Hmmm…don’t know if Mr. King did #4 as I found his trackback in WordPress, but I’ll forgive him. In fact, I don’t think #4 is necessarily good blog etiquette as it’s not really in good taste to leave irrelevant comments linking to your site.

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Anyway, here they are…some random, some weird:

1. I love movies (as my Twitter friends will already know), but avoid chick flicks at all costs, despite the fact that I am, indeed, a chick.

2. I have one older sister and no brothers. If I was born a boy, I was going to be named “Patrick” (that’s a two-fer for ya…2 random facts!).

3. I used to be quite afraid of snakes, but since I saw the movie Snakes on a Plane, I’m not too scared of them anymore. Of course, I wouldn’t want to randomly meet a cobra or viper, but the thought of snakes and seeing them contained doesn’t creep me out anymore.

4. In my early 20s, I had dreams of being a rockstar and took guitar lessons (I sucked).

5. I am the first person in my family to be born in Canada. My parents, sister and most relatives were born in the Czech Republic.

6. The first baby I ever held was my own. I was terrified.

7. I buy a lot of books that I never read, but I don’t buy ebooks that I never read.

Now, your turn. Feel free to participate and post a link to your own 7 random & weird things in the comments area…but I’m specifically calling on the following to get on board:

• Melissa Ingold
• Stefani
• Stephanie
• Genesis
• Debra Conrad

Looking forward to learning more about you!

Blogging When You’re REALLY Out of Ideas

• Carrie Lauth

Every mom has a repertoire of easy dinners she can pull out of her pantry when she’s out of groceries or out of ideas. You know the ones - those easy, never fail, always please family favorites you can throw together with a can of this and a box of that. Great for those busy nights or when you’re feeling tired.

When it comes to blogging, it’s also a good idea to have some blogging “cheats” for those inevitable dry spells. Here are a few ideas that have worked for me and other bloggers:

• Recaps. This might look like a “week in review” roundup of excellent blog posts you’ve written or read in the last week. This one is great for establishing goodwill with other bloggers you admire. You might like this one so much you decide to do it on a regular basis.You can also publish your greatest/most commented on/etc posts on a particular topic. This is particularly valuable to your new readers who may not have read some of your best work. It allows them to see some of your archived content.
• One year ago… Similar to a recap, this one is a list of some of the popular posts you published one year ago. It’s easy to simply search for all the posts you wrote a year ago inside your blog’s control panel. Find the best ones and spotlight them.
• Twitter roundup. Consider copying and pasting some of the best, funniest, or most interesting Tweets that are relevant to your market.You could also ask a question of your followers, and paste their answers into your blog. Lynn Terry, Kelly McCausey and our very own resident Sweetie Alice have all done this with success.
• Ask a question. Oh this has got to be the easiest of all the cheats! Simply ask your readers a thought provoking question and leverage the power of your blog as a survey tool. Let THEM do all the work creating content for a change!You can also publish a question your subscribers or readers have emailed you. Get their permission first or publish it anonymously. People love to feel like they’re helping others. Let them be the experts.
• Memes. Participate in memes like Wordless Wednesday (and Tell Me Thursday), Thankful Thursday, Monday Motivation, and others. If you’re feeling a bit of blogger’s block, these are great for keeping things fresh.
• Interview someone. Have you read a great book lately? Email the author some questions and post the interview on your blog.Is there a reader who leaves great comments on your blog? Introduce them in your post. Publish success stories, case studies, etc… these again create goodwill but also give you interesting content that you don’t have to work really hard for.
• Be an editor. Instead of always being a writer/blogger, consider serving as editor from time to time. Accept content and publish it if that makes sense for your market.For instance, on a parenting blog, you could accept parenting tips and advice, funny stories or photos, embarrassing moments, birth stories, product reviews, etc. For a wahm blog, publish wahm success stories and press releases.

Even the most prolific blogger occasionally runs out of ideas. Keep these ideas in your virtual pantry and pull them out to create something tasty for your readers.

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• Carrie Lauth

Back to School? Back to Work!

Labor day came fast and now has gone. My oldest son had been asking me, “When does Grade 2 start?” for weeks and my younger son was pretty excited about his first kindergarden class. Now, it’s just me, hubby and babe at home.

I’m still taking it easy for the next month or so, since baby is not yet quite 1 month old, but if you have kids and they’ve headed back to school, that means you can get back to some serious work.

In honor of this extra time entrepreneurial parents now have, Kelly McCausey and Nicole Dean have put together a “Back to School” special on a couple of their very practical learning products.

** By the way, you don’t need to have kids to take advantage of the nearly 50% off discount. **

• Easy Article Marketing: Get serious about using content to boost your traffic, reputation and sales - only $20.
• Easy Partnerships: Maximize the resources available to you without paying out of your pocket - create profitablepartnerships online - only $20.

The discounts have already been applied to the sales page. Just click the order link and you’re ready to roll.

Do You Enjoy Talking about Your Online Business?

A few months back, I asked Does Your Mother Know and Understand What You Do and a number of people shared that it was tough to explain things so others will completely understand. I don’t necessarily find it difficult to fully explain to people what I do, but sometimes I just don’t want to explain. I mean, when I worked for the government, very few people wanted to hear the mundane details of my work day and I kind of like it that way.

My question. Do YOU enjoy talking about your online business to your “real life” friends? Or do you like to keep it private?