Any time there is a downturn in the economy, there are always great opportunities that rise. There’s an article written by renowned copywriter Clayton Makepeace about the tremendous opportunities that show up during bad times.

His article may give you some powerful ideas on building your business to really thrive in today’s conditions. You may notice that our training products address opportunity #2 on his list.

Here’s a piece of what he wrote.

“Let's say you own a business and you're trying to decide what kinds of products you should be developing…

You probably already know it’s not going to be easy. Just take a look
around you…

The U.S. economy has reached a standstill and the stock market is trapped in quicksand.

The credit markets have dried up, and even our largest banks are on the brink of disaster.

The equity in your home… is dwindling by the day. And despite the steady stream of pro-dollar B.S. flowing from the Fed, the value of your money is sinking too.

Personal and corporate bankruptcies are reaching all-time record highs every single month.

Gas and electricity prices are sky-high and getting higher. And every trip to the grocery store costs you more than the last one did…

So - given the fact that we're all marketers here - what do you do to make
the most money in bad times? What kinds of products should you be launching…?

I see five big opportunities for entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketing folks…

Opportunity #1:

Anything that helps consumers or businesses function better for less - products and services that improve gas mileage, reduce the number of miles we drive each day, shrink gas and electricity bills… and minimize our taxes and insurance premiums.

Offer to help businesses to reduce their costs and find new methods that improve productivity and shore up their bottom lines.

Opportunity #2:

You can also offer ways to help consumers or businesses make more money - products and services that help people get a raise, augment income, or replace a job. That means work-at-home opportunities, entrepreneurial and home biz opportunities, online businesses, courses on investing, software, and other products designed to do well in an inflationary environment.

For businesses you can help them sell more products for less - including anything that helps them increase sales revenues and reduce costs, thus increasing ROI, profits, and market share.

For consumers, you can provide tools to survive and thrive in a troubled real estate market, or offer products and services to help with debt.

Opportunity #3:

Provide little luxuries and guilty pleasures.

… When money's tight and jobs are hanging by a thread, inexpensive products that give us a sense of normalcy help us connect emotionally with "the good old days”, and boost our self-esteem or give us pleasure for a few moments with an escape from worry. Things like that sell like hotcakes”

To read the rest of the article and learn about the other major opportunities listed, you can find it here:

http://www.earlytorise.com/2008/07/08/5-ways-to-grow-very-rich-in-tough-economic-times.html

The highlight of a Major League Baseball player’s career has always been being selected for the All-Star team. As the starters for each position are chosen by the fans, usually in terms of who is the most popular, being selected is considered major validation of a player’s mass appeal. And for the pitchers and back-up players who are appointed for each position by the other players, Managers and Coaches, this is considered a tremendous endorsement of their abilities…and value to the organization.

But…after both of these groups have been chosen, there is one last shot for one last spot on the team. Five additional players are nominated by the All-Star Managers and Coaches and the fans get yet another chance to vote—but this time only for one player on this “short-list”— to fill this lone remaining position.

It’s no surprise then that these five remaining candidates are actually campaigning for this single, final, shot to be among the “chosen few”. But they’re not just going out there and saying, “Vote for me.” They are launching and executing full-scale, (sometimes) multi-thousand-dollar, sponsored, campaigns—even utilizing “traditional” grassroots methods such as shaking hands, kissing babies and “street teams”.

But as I learned on… this website…they’re also using some “not-so-traditional” campaign methods as well. Several of these five remaining candidates are even adopting Web 2.0 marketing techniques to try and win votes.

Blogging on social networking sites and “viral videos” are two of their seemingly preferred mechanisms. For Jermaine Dye, the White Sox are even taking that a little further. They have a “secret weapon” according to the site mentioned above: “…the three-year-old White Sox Insider MLBlog maintained by Scott Reifert, the team's vice president of communications. It reaches directly to fans and now carries the Final Vote Widget that can be spread like wildfire around blogs and all social media.”

WOW. We’ve been hearing more and more lately how powerful Web 2.0 can be for attracting traffic to your website and/or online business. But when even MLB All-Star “Final Vote” candidates are using this technology to try and secure that last coveted spot—by driving traffic to their voting pages—it makes you realize what a “Grand Slam” this method can be for web marketing.

Yet…despite the “awesomeness” of Web 2.0 in generating traffic, as mentioned above, these players aren’t relying on this method alone. Do you know why? Simply because the people managing these campaigns are typically their Agents, Club, or Team owners. Smart business people.

And because they are smart business people, they haven’t forgotten one of the basic tenets of business and baseball: “Don’t bet the game on one play.” Besides all the other common parallels and analogies (“swing for the fences”; “hit a homerun”; “bring in the relief pitcher”) this is but yet another lesson that all online business owners or marketers can take from baseball.

Right now, too many utilize only one or two traffic generating techniques or constantly switch from the latest traffic fad to the next. Each and every business should have a balance. With multiple, proven, business-building traffic techniques including—but not limited to—Web 2.0.

But you know what else? Like they do with the Baseball All-Stars…wouldn't it be great to get the heavy hitters of traffic together to make a case for their top methods of generating constant streams of targeted visitors?

What if they were in a competition to prove which traffic methods were best? What if you could hear their insider secrets like how they make each method get the extra distance needed to hit home run after home run?

Stay tuned, this idea is just too good too pass up. Keep your eyes peeled for step by step instructions…head to head competition…all with the one goal of finding out: Who are the All-Stars of traffic? And maybe more importantly…what are their most powerful traffic generating techniques? The very ones, play by play, that put them at the top of their league…

- Kim

So you reach the point where you have hired customer staff. Excellent, now what is the next step?

It takes more resources in the form of time, effort, and money to attract new customers than it does to simply keep your existing customers happy.

So while spending the time and money to train your customer service staff may seem like a large chunk of cash that can be well spent elsewhere, the reality of it is that it can pay off two fold or more over time in the form of customer retention later.

Successfully training your customer service staff to solve problems for your customers will depend on the set up work that you do in choosing the right people for the job and making sure that they have resources available to help them handle difficult customer situations.

What are some things to consider when training your staff?

Here are just a few:

• It’s all about the personality: It takes a special type of person to be able to properly support your customers. You need someone that is even keel and very professional. Remember, clients don’t usually open a support ticket or pick up the phone to tell you that their transaction was flawless and keep up the great work.

  You need someone that can handle your clients issues day in and day out without burning out. Trust me; you do not want to spend the time and money training someone only to have them leave once they hit the front lines.

• Train not only your customer support staff but all of your staff on the proper way to deal with your clientele: Your clients should experience the same professionalism from any member of your staff.
• Customer service is not a single faceted area; there are many different prongs: Make sure your staff is trained on all.
• Keep them informed: You spend all of your time coming up with a great promotion and then something happens that causes a glitch. If your support staff is not prepared the consequences can be disastrous.
• Do not use training as a punishment: Training should never be seen as a “fix” for an employee. This tactic can create a difficult situation for the trainer. The only effective context for sending an employee to training is a positive one of skills improvement and job enhancement.
• Emphasize the importance of communication: Be sure that there is always someone that your staff can go to when they have questions. Ideally there will be a support leader, but in some cases that may be you or someone on your staff. Be sure that they feel they can ask you, or you may not like the results when they try to handle items they are unsure of on their own.

Your customer service staff represents not only the front line within your company but in many cases they are the only people within your company that your customers will actually have interaction with. It is worth your time and money to make sure that you are well represented.

- Meredith

P.S. - Did you know that 68% of people quit doing business with companies that have poor customer service? Learn exactly what to say to customers – and double your sales. Go to: http://www.surefirecustomerservicetechniques.com