Can you increase your revenue with absolutely no increase in effort—no new product, no new ad campaign, nothing?  If you’re thinking this is one of those hyped-up claims, think again.

It works–for our clients, for our customers–and it can work for you.  That’s why we’ve built these techniques our new Instant Customer Connection systems.  More about that later–but first, let me tell you how this has worked for one of our customers.

One of the businesses in our community increased her revenue, quickly and easily, with a simple survey.  They continue to reap the rewards, month after month.

Although the business in this case study is a small, young, ecommerce store, the strategy works just as effectively for $100-million companies—and at that level, the rewards can be even larger.

The goals for this survey were simple:  They wanted to gather proof that their customers were satisfied with their products and customer service; they also wanted to find out if a new product line they were considering would sell.

To measure these factors, they used some simple questions:

• To gather more proof to convert customers, they included our “testimonial generator,” which allowed them to gather testimonials, with permission to use them, right inside the survey.  (That’s the tool that has gathered 868 testimonials, with permission to use them, for one of our clients–we tell you about that below.)
• To get extra statistical proof, they also included some of our standard satisfaction questions, as well as
• some questions to find out what new products and services their customers might like.

The results?  Phenomenal.

This small business now has 15-20 testimonials coming in, per month, ready to post on their website.

They have irrefutable statistical proof showing that

• Over 95% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the products purchased
• Over 90% would recommend the website to a friend
• Over 90% say that they “definitely” or “probably” would buy from them again, knowing what they know now

Fully 1 in 3 said that the product exceeded their expectations (those are the people highly likely to give referrals).

Product creation.   The survey identified a new product that nearly 44% of their customers think they’ll purchase within the next 6 months, 3 other new products that at least 20% (1 in 5) think they’ll purchase in the next 6 months.  So the survey gave them priceless information on how to prioritize their new products—thanks to this insider information, they’ll know how to pick winners.  Wouldn’t you like to have a “CSI” like that in your business, to feed you information about what will work?

Well, her “survey CSI” also showed them what NOT to create.

They found out that their customers weren’t interested in a new service that this business had planned to roll out–so they avoided spending time and money creating a service that would fail.  Whew.

Quick Fixes.  The survey gave them another useful caution:  They found 3 areas of the website that their customers wanted them to improve.  These are easy fixes that can improve their customers’ experience, right away.  And as you know well, any time you improve your customers’ experience, you also improve your bottom line.

Social Media Strategy.  The survey showed the business owners exactly what content that their customers are interested in; they’ll use this information to tailor a social media campaign that draws new leads and builds their community.  Knowing what kind of content your customers want is critical for social media ROI–that’s why teaming social media and surveys is such a smart strategy.  It’s absolutely critical that your social media strategy gives your community “what they want, where they are.”

Who Are They? The customer profile section of the survey showed them that their customers were older and more educated than they thought.  (I can’t tell you how many times this happens:  You think you know who your customers are until you find out who they really are, with a survey.)  Now, they’ll target their messages and offers in a new way that will make their customers feel that the business knows them personally.

As an added payoff, they found out that their customers want a monthly newsletter, not more frequent communication.

The biggest payoff of all?   The comments in the testimonials told them that customers thought their prices were low–really low.   Based on that, the company raised its prices with no decline in sales or customer complaints.  So they really DID increase her revenue with no additional work!

That’s amazing ROI from a survey that took about a day to put together.

This is just one example of how surveys can transform your business.

Is this just an isolated case?  Absolutely not.  Another client is going through a major launch right now.  I helped them with a survey, using the same testimonial generator used in the case study above, and we gathered 868 testimonials, with permission to use them.  Those folks estimated that the testimonials will be worth at least $500,000 in their launch. They’re being courted by a major company right now for a JV that could take their business to the stratosphere and the survey generated proof that the market demand was there, proof that will be invaluable in their negotiations.

The bottom line is that, whether you’re a fledgling startup or a billion-dollar company, surveys pay off.

But the PROBLEM has been that many of you say you just don’t have time to do a survey yourself and you’re worried about how to get it programmed and get response.

Well, we heard you!  So we’ve created three new systems that let you accomplish what our client did, while we do all the work for you.  If you’re part of our community and getting our emails, you should have already have gotten information about how to get a sneak peek at what we’ve built.  If you’re not part of our community already, go here so you can take our quiz to find out where you need to use surveys to make money, get our FREE ebook, and find out more about our new systems!

With the new year fast approaching, this is the time to review your goals for next year and start getting things in place to achieve them.

At this point, you should have

• your goals identified clearly;
• strategies laid out for achieving those goals;
• tactics that will get you there; and
• resources identified.

With The Help Of Of Survey Research You Can Increase Sales.

The answers to all 3 of these questions lies in understanding your customers deeply, according to an insightful book by a Harvard author.

What do you think–is he right about how we achieve connection? About how we innovate? Is this really the way out of economic decline for America?

There’s a lot of doom and gloom right now.

It’s time to take ACTION and I’m going to help you get your action plan together, right now, so you profit from what’s happening, instead of falling victim to it.  And yes, I AM going to tell you how a successful business owner is getting a 70% opt-in rate on her site.

I’m going to give you some key ways to take action right now and at the end of this, I’m going to do something I’ve NEVER done before on this site:  I’m going to tell you how you can get a live, one-on-one strategy session with me, to help you start turning things around in your business, right now.

In the last few weeks, the stock market has plummeted–the Dow was down over 4% in August, the worst August showing since 2001.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high, with rates continuing to exceed 9%.

Lots of fear, lots of uncertainty.

And LOTS of opportunity, IF you know where to find it and how to take advantage of it.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve talked to two very different business owners with very different views on what’s happening right now.

One of our customers is scared stiff because his business is tanking and he doesn’t know where to turn.  He talked at length about the economic problems and what a toll they were taking on his family.

I just got off the phone with another business owner, with whom I had a very different conversation.  I actually didn’t hear a word about THE economy, but I heard a lot about HER economy–which is booming.

Her sales are up, her list is growing, she’s hosting a live event and introducing new products.

What’s the difference between these two business owners and these two businesses?

I doubt seriously it’s reducible to one thing, but one thing is VERY clear:  The successful business owner is using surveys to LISTEN to her customers and prospects and she’s profiting from it, in a major way.

That’s what folks like us do when the chips are down:  We take action and that’s why we succeed.

Here’s what the successful business owner has been doing that the guy whose business is tanking HASN’T been doing:

• She surveyed her industry on a key issue:  fees and compensation.  She produced an ebook out of that survey that her prospects are CLAMORING to get.  In fact, the opt-in rate on that ebook is 70%.
• ACTION ITEM:  Don’t think you could do a little survey in YOUR industry and produce a report on the results?  Wouldn’t you like to have a 70% opt-in rate on your site?
• She uses surveys to gather testimonials, so that she has a constant supply of “stories that stick.”  These testimonials provide tales, in her customers’ own words, of how her products and services have transformed their businesses.  The surveys go out on autopilot–all she has to do is reap the rewards.  This helps her get more customers, get better customers, and keep them longer.
• ACTION ITEM:  Getting testimonials in a survey is the simplest thing in the world.  You create a short survey with a couple of satisfaction questions and you use one of those questions as the lead-in for a testimonial request.  You set the survey up and then use an autoresponder to send out a link to the survey to everyone who buys your product or service.  And voila:  You have testimonials coming in on autopilot.
• She tells her customers how do to surveys in THEIR businesses, helping THEM get proof on autopilot, as well.  This is something for which her customers are extremely grateful–which makes them much more likely to stay and to buy from her, over and over.
• ACTION ITEM:  Once you put surveys to work in your business, your customers and clients will want to use them, as well.  We will not only help you teach your customers how to put surveys to work, we’ll make it profitable for you to do so!

Find Out How Our Satisfaction Survey May Improve Your Business.

We’re doing a really cool survey for The Tony Robbins Companies right now and I wanted to tell you about it, because YOU can do the same thing in YOUR business, to build buzz, build your list, and PROFIT!

Their company needed to do a survey to collect some information on their community and we saw this as a big opportunity to also find out how their folks were feeling about the economy and about economic opportunity, right now.

As you now, the economy is a HOT topic right now and anytime you can link a survey to a hot topic in the news or in your industry, you should leverage it.

So here’s what we did:  I looked for GOOD surveys about the economy and found good ones done by Pew Research and Gallup.

We put some of the same questions on the survey for Tony Robbins.

Why use the same questions that were in these national surveys?  Because this lets us compare what Tony Robbins’community thinks to what the country, as a whole, thinks.

That’s a GREAT strategy that you can leverage in YOUR business, because it lets you:

• build buzz about your survey in social media, to increase your fans and followers by putting up cool content that will engage your folks;
• tune into what your community thinks about an important issue, so you know how to connect with them
• know more about who your folks are, which lets you increase your conversions because you can target messages and offers to make them feel you know them personally, understand their problems and feel their pain.

And it’s SUPER easy to do.

Just look for surveys on a topic related to your niche or industry–a great way to  do that is through Google Alerts, set for some of your top keywords.  You’ll see lots of surveys in those alerts.

Then when you find an interesting survey, put a little survey of your own together, using the same questions, and send a link to the survey out to your list, so they can participate.

Invite your Twitter followers and Facebook fans to participate.

And here’s a tip on that:  go to search.Twitter.com and find “hashtags” related to the topic, then include those in your tweets so folks will see your invitation to take the survey.  (For this one, we’re using things like #economy and #opportunity.)

Once you get the results, you have gold!

• Put up a blog post, telling folks about the results and comparing them to the national results.
• Do a video and put it on YouTube, blast it out to more sites through Traffic Geyser, to build more buzz.
• Tweet about the results.
• Post about the results on your Facebook fan page.

And in each of these places, invite your community to tell you what THEY think about the results.

This is a great way to leverage the power of surveys to build your community, your lists, and your buzz!

And if you want to take the survey we did for Tony Robbins, to tell him what YOU think about the economy, just go here.

OK, so Don and I definitely look like “Mutt and Jeff” in this picture . .. But  Social Profit Formula is open–I hope you watched all the videos, because it was a GREAT launch from which to learn, on many levels–and it’s my honor to tell you about it.

You can put Don’s amazing strategies to work if you act fast.

And I’m going to give you the EXACT TOOL I used to get 868 testimonials for a client, PLUS other awesome tools that will multiply the power of Don’s strategies, IF you’re one of the first 10 to invest through this link:

http://www.MySocialProfitExpert.com

Here’s the deal:  You have a chance to learn from the best of the best, my friend Don.

I don’t promote ANYTHING I don’t believe in, ANYONE I don’t trust, ANY product I don’t use myself.

This gets my HIGHEST endorsement and Don is of the absolute highest integrity.  If you have to pick 1 thing to invest in right now and IF social media is a priority for you, this is the one to pick.

http://www.MySocialProfitExpert.com

And I have a bonus that will really help you make money from these strategies.

It’s the tools to get the same business intelligence I give to Don and Traffic Geyser and other top marketers.

It’s designed to help you take your business to the 6- or  7-figure level, by getting you the business intelligence to multiply the power of these strategies–intelligence your competitors DON’T have.

I’ve built a Facebook fan page poll that you can deploy on your fan page, so you can find out exactly what kind of content your fans want and GIVE it to them.  You can also find out who they ARE, so you can laser target your Facebook ads to find more fans LIKE them.  You get all the data in an Excel spreadsheet, on the back end.

I’m going to give this awesome new tool to you, ready to deploy on your fan page.

I’m going to do 2 webinars with you to show you how to put this to work AND to teach you a whole slew of Ninja survey tools to use with social media, ”social media multipliers” that will help you build your business FAST.

AND I’m going to teach you EXACTLY how to build your business even more, strategies that can help you build a 6- or even 7-figure consulting business by giving your clients rock-solid evidence of what you’ve accomplished for them, PLUS 3 forms of proof for your marketing.

This is GOLD because I’m even giving you the EXACT tool I used to get 868 testimonials for a client.  Imagine having THOSE on your website.

But because of the nature of this training, I can only give 10 of these bonuses away.

To get all of this, just go here now:

http://www.MySocialProfitExpert.com

From the time I was 5, he taught me to do three things when I met someone:  shake his or her hand (“firm handshake, Jeanne—no limp dishrags”), look them in the eye, and listen carefully to everything they said.

I’ve carried that lesson with me and I’ve taught it to many clients because, if you can do those 3 things, you can make a meaningful connection with almost anyone.  And those connections are the foundation of business success.

But most of us don’t do business in small farming communities where we can know each customer personally, where we can forge a relationship with prospects at the local post office or general store.

How do you do forge a meaningful connection with customers and prospects if you’re selling home décor products from an online store or you’re a $100-million company or a huge health care provider serving thousands and thousands of patients in a huge region?

Simple:  You just reverse the order of those 3 things my father taught me.

You start by listening to your customers and prospects and you’ll be able to forge a connection that makes them feel as if you have stood toe-to-to with them and looked into their eyes as you shook their hands.  And the results can be astounding.

The owner of the ecommerce store may discover that the women who buy their products aren’t affluent suburbanites who are out to impress the neighbors after all–they’re middle-income women who want to create an unforgettable memory that will sparkle in their child’s eyes.

Well there’s an “aha moment.”  Once you learn that, you’ll know exactly how to connect with those customers.

And suddenly, your impersonal ecommerce store feels to them like the little neighborhood boutique.  They’ll buy from you, over and over, because you’re the trusted friend who helps them create memories their children will cherish.

Or maybe the health care corporation finally starts a real conversation with its community and discovers that the older patients aren’t ignoring the doctors’ instructions—they just don’t understand them.

So the physicians begin sending these patients home with written protocols and suddenly, their outcomes, and their satisfaction, increase dramatically.  And so does the practice’s bottom line.

Those patients will finally feel that the company finally cares, that it understands who they are and what they need.

They will feel as if that corporate health provider truly looked them in the eye and shook their hands, as surely as my father shook the hand and looked in the eye of every farmer who trusted him with their hard-earned savings.

That’s what it means to have a conversation with your customers and prospects, to really understand what motivates them and who they are and what they need.  Once you listen, the rest is easy.

Find Out How A Satisfaction Survey Can Help Find Out What Your Clients Really Want.

QR Code Beneath a Saturn Rocket

OK, so what’s this weird picture of a rocket and a funny-looking symbol on a sign?

I accompanied my daughter’s Brownie troop to the Houston Space Center this weekend.  (We had a blast!)

And as we toured the center, I spotted this QR code on a sign, beneath a Saturn rocket.

If you scanned the QR code, your smartphone took you to a website that gave you cool information about the rocket.

And we’ve set up a FREE tool that will let YOU create QR codes so you can do all sorts of cool things like this!

We’ve created a QR Code generator for you.

For those of you who haven’t used QR codes yet, they’re awesome. It’s a type of barcode that was invented in Japan in the mid-90s and the cool thing about them is that you can encode information in them that someone can read with a scanner–and of course, “there’s an app for that.”

That’s right, you get the idea. The potential for using QR codes with mobile marketing is absolutely enormous.

For example: I can put up a survey, encode the URL in a QR code, and put it on a business card–all someone has to do is scan the code to take the survey on their mobile phone.

I can put a QR code at the end of a survey that someone can scan to go to my Facebook fan page, to download a free report or enter a contest (yes, you can scan a QR code off of a computer screen).

If I’m a local marketer who’s working with a real estate agent, I can put a QR code on a sign in front of a house that’s for sale, so they can download the real estate agent’s contact info and some info on the house.

The potential for this is absolutely limitless.

What can our QR code generator do for you?

We’ve set it up so that you can embed in your QR code:

• The URL for a site, page, or blog that you want someone to visit.
• A note–any sort of text that you want to deliver to the person scanning the code.
• An email address; the recipient can populate the “to” field of an email with the address.
• A phone number; VERY useful if you want to direct the person scanning the code to make a phone call (you could use this to get them to call your Monster Followup number!).
• A vCard containing all of your contact information.  This is an excellent way to get all your contact info into someone else’s smartphone.
• An SMS message–if you code this in a QR code, most code readers will populate the text of the message in the device so that the SMS can be sent with a single click.
• A geo/location–if you know the latitude and longitude coordinates of a location (such as an offline business), you can code these in a QR code.  The reader will interpret it and open that location on the device’s gps/map.

The potential for this is HUGE!

Check out the generator and start putting this awesome technology to work!

Even if you’re one of the lucky few for whom 2010 was a banner year, “rinse and repeat” won’t cut it—because the things that brought you this far won’t take you the rest of the way. You’ve got to come up with new strategies.

So today, we’re going to help you out by giving you the 4 critical focus areas, the 4 pillars to build to make 2011 a banner year.

You already know that the plan MUST include the cash conversation with your customers and prospects. But, to keep it simple and clear, we suggest you use surveys to build the 4 critical pillars in your business for 2011: to connect, create, convert, and cash in.

Connect—This simple but powerful pillar is something we hear about all the time–forming a bond and trust with your customers. But there are 2 things that many people AREN’T telling you about building that all-important bond and trust. The first is how simple it can be to build, if you just start the conversation with your folks and the second is that, if you want to connect in a profitable way, they’ve got to know you AND you’ve got to know them. Otherwise, it’s not a connection, it’s a one-way street.

So yes, as everyone tells you all the time, your customers must like and trust you so they’ll look to you for information and ultimately, be more likely to buy from you. But the second key component, too often overlooked, is this: Connecting also means YOU have to know who your customers are, you have to understand their problems and pain.

This second aspect is absolutely critical because it’s what lets you target your messages and offers so that your customers and prospects FEEL you know them personally. That kind of connection can help you to build the next 2 pillars of your business, by creating the products they want and increasing your conversions.

Done properly, ANY survey will increase your connection to your customers and prospects, as long as it FEELS like a conversation with them.

But there is one particular type of cash conversation that you really need to start right away in 2011, if you aren’t having it already, and that’s the customer profile survey.

These simple surveys prove amazingly powerful because they give you the information you need to understand who your customers are, so that you really can target your messages and offers specifically.

Customer profile surveys focus on one simple question: “Who are you?” These surveys gather the demographics—characteristics like how old your customers or prospects are and whether they’re male or female—and psychographics—their desires, pains, and frustrations.

Here’s a tip that will really ramp up your success when you do these surveys: Never START these surveys with demographics. After all, you wouldn’t start a conversation by asking someone how old they were or how much money they made, would you? Instead, start with something that will be interesting and engaging for your customer.

And don’t forget the incentive! ALWAYS give them something valuable in return for doing your survey. Remember, the #1 mantra of surveys—and marketing—is, “It’s all about them, it’s all about them, it’s all about them.”

Create—Marketers tell us all too often that they’ve spent months and months, and thousands and thousands of dollars creating a product that falls flat, because it just wasn’t what the target market wanted.

You can avoid this fate simply and easily: All you have to do is ASK your customers what they want, each time you create a product or a membership site or a new program.

Hands down, this is the simplest, easiest, and most effective survey you could do in 2011. You could have this system up and running, getting information for you to create a product and building your list at the same time, in less than a week.

We’ve put together an awesome new product creation system for you that even includes “how to” documents on setting up lead pages, autoresponders—anything at all that you need to do, we’ve shown you how. To find out more, just go here { http://mixiv.com/Survey-Product-Creation}.

Convert—In every survey we do, marketers tell us they need to increase conversion. And this you can solve this problem, too, quickly and easily, by having the cash conversation with your prospects.

The simple truth is that SO many ways that surveys can ramp up your conversions by as much as 60-80%.

One of those surveys is the customer profile survey that we just told you about. In addition to increasing the connection to your customer, these surveys also increase conversions by giving you the information you need to segment your list. Once you have your list segmented, you can laser target your messages and offers to skyrocket your conversions.

And trust me, this is something ALL the top marketers do. We know one guy who has his list segmented 36 different ways. Put this in place for 2011 and watch your profits soar.

Cashing In—Not much to say here, because if you build the first 3 pillars, this part will happen naturally.

The key to making it happen is to build a SYSTEM in your business where you’re having the cash conversation with your prospects and customers, all the time, to build the first 3 pillars by connecting with them, creating the products they want to order, and converting your interactions into sales.

Once you have the first three pillars in place, once you’re realized that it all starts with a survey and put your survey system in place, the rest is easy.

Follow this simple plan to use surveys to connect, create, convert, and cash in and you really will make 2011 a banner year.

And if you’re ready to get your first survey done tomorrow, if you’re ready to be part of our members’ community and start having the cash conversation with YOUR customers and prospects, just go here {http://www.MySurveyExpert.com/Cash}.

It’s back:  Black Friday, the annual shopfest that marks the beginning of the holiday season.

And no, I didn’t trudge out at 2AM to stand in line in a cold Baton Rouge rain to elbow my way in for the deals.

If you braved the crowds, I hope you snagged your deal and are now safely snug and warm at home.  (I’m home, in front of my computer, with CB and Neily at my feet, enjoying the quiet while my little one is out for a bit.)

Even though I didn’t make it out to the stores today, I love to see this day come.

That’s right, I admit it:  I love the holidays.  Might not be cool, but I do.  Bring on the figgy pudding and the Festival of Lights and the whole nine yards, I’m in.  (And because I love them so much, I’m giving you a chance to get some quick holiday cash—so keep reading to find out how!)

But as a business owner, there’s a “dark side” to the holidays that brings its own, unique brand of angst:    the dreaded balance sheet.

I don’t know about you, but the very thought of that year-end accountability makes me queasy.

Yet here we stand.  The bells are tolling, the ball is about to drop, and we must face the cold, hard facts about what we did and didn’t accomplish last year.

Can you just ignore it?  Absolutely—as long as you’re willing to sign a contract saying that you absolutely, positively, DO NOT want to do ANY better in 2011 than you did in 2010.

But if you want to avoid that fate, if you want to correct your shortcomings and multiply your successes exponentially, you’ve got to look BEYOND the numbers on the balance sheet to UNDERSTAND the answers to 2 critical questions.

1)   WHY did you fall short in certain areas?  Answering this question will let you turn last year’s losses into next year’s leverage.

2)    WHY did you SUCCEED or EXCEL in other areas?  Although you might be tempted to “rest on your laurels,” analyzing the successes is at least as important as deconstructing the failures, so that you can replicate and extend that success for next year.

How do you find the answers?  It’s not through introspection, it’s not through more books or courses or seminars, it’s not through voodoo.

You find the answers simply, quickly, easily, and inexpensively, by finally LISTENING to your customers and prospects, by finally HAVING the cash conversation that can transform your business in 2011.

The simple truth is that the places in which your profits fell short are the places where you somehow fell short in serving your customers, the places in which you excelled are those in which you met or exceeded their expectations.

So it is they who can show you exactly how to turn 2011 into a banner year.

To show you how this works, let’s look at some of the “ghosts of transactions past” that might be haunting your 2010 balance sheet and see how the simple act of LISTENING to your customers can turn it all around:

Scenario 1: You spent a TON of time and money this year creating THE product that you KNEW was going to make a mint for you.  It fell considerably short of your expectations and you have no idea why.

Well, how did you “know” that product would work?  You had a hunch or you talked with a customer who said they wanted it or you had one of those wonderful, 3 AM ideas, maybe?

The way to create a winning product is to take you impressions of what you THINK they want, then ASK your customers—ALL of them—if they want it, what they want in it, how they want it delivered, and what they’ll pay.  And you do this BEFORE you spend months and months and thousands of dollars creating something.

You do that with a Product Creation Survey–if you’re a MySurveyExpert member, you already have our awesome new Product Creation System.  If you’re not a member, we’ll be unveiling it very soon!

Scenario 2:  You’re not getting traffic to your website or blog, no matter how hard you try, no matter how many of the latest, greatest tricks you implement.

No question about it, traffic is the Holy Grail.  And if the old “if we build it, they will come” philosophy didn’t work this year, let’s try a different approach.

Let’s try ASKING people what they want to know and GIVING it to them on your website or blog.

How?  Super simple.  Put up a lead page or “squeeze page” and ask people what their #1 question is about your topic, what the #1 problem is in their business is that keeps them awake at night, or something like that.  Give them a free report, video, or something else of value, in exchange for the question, name, and email.

You’ll get a goldmine of information AND you’ll build your list, by simply using social media to drive traffic to the page or buying and targeting a Facebook ad.

Suddenly, you’ll KNOW what kind of content they want and you’ll be able to give it to them, JUST from the questions you get.

By answering each one of these questions,

• You can create blog posts for months.
• You can produce an eBook to give away in exchange for an “opt-in.”
• You’ll know how to target your AdWords campaign.
• You’ll have enough tweets to take you well into the 2^nd quarter of 2011.
• You’ll have posts that will put your Facebook fan page on fire.

You get the idea:  You’ll finally find that Holy Grail.

Scenario 3:  Your customer retention rate just keeps falling and you can’t understand why, because you keep getting rave reviews on your blog.

I hear this all the time:  “I know people like my stuff because they tell me so on my blog” or “I’ve gotten at least 10 tweets about how great it is” or “the people who show up on my coaching calls LOVE the membership site.”

Know what you’ve heard?  You’ve heard that 5 people, or 10 people, or the select few on your coaching calls “love your stuff.”

Think about that for a minute:  Can you run a successful business that supports your family and funds your retirement based on 5 or 10 people?  Probably not.

If your retention rates are falling, you’re missing the mark with the MAJORITY, of your folks, who are very different than the happy minority you’re hearing from.

So if you want to build the business that WILL serve your customers and accomplish your goals, you’ve got to broaden your scope, you’ve got to listen to ALL your customers.

Research shows clearly that, in any user participation site—going all the way back to CompuServe bulletin boards (I’m old enough to remember those!)  and forward to social media—over 90% of the content comes from 5% or less of the users and the vast majority of the content comes from about 1% of the users.

Here’s the bottom line:

• If you have a membership site, survey everyone.
• If you’re selling a series of products, attach a satisfaction survey to EVERY ONE of them so that you know what they’re thinking.

And if you think this idea is geeky, think again. The top marketers do this ALL the time—I know, because I help them do it.

One top marketer has a satisfaction survey attached to all of his products, even the ones he gives away.

There’s a REASON they make so much money:  They answer these critical questions.  Model their success and you’ll make 2011 truly remarkable, for you AND your customers.

Scenario 4:  You get tons of traffic to your website but you can’t crank up your conversion rate.

Maybe you need a different way to engage your customers.  One killer way to do that is with QUIZZES, which can increase your conversion rates by as much as 80%.

But for this to work, you need GOOD quizzes.  Far too many folks do quizzes where they ask a few questions, assign a “score,” and then give you a scale with which to interpret it.  So the quiz really doesn’t tell you or teach you very much.  And worse, if your score is low, you may feel pretty embarrassed.

I don’t know about you, but being told that I don’t know very much doesn’t generally make more likely to buy.

We think there’s a better way.

We’ve come up with a quiz model that has 2 key parts.  In the first section, we get the “norm of reciprocity” going by giving people valuable content.  We do this by getting people to answer 4-5 multiple choice questions; the return script gives them their answer, the correct answer, and a couple of paragraphs of WHY it’s the correct answer—the valuable content.

And then in the second section, we bring it home:  We find some key characteristics, skills, deficits, or problems and give them a customized recommendation for YOUR products or services.  So if they say they have Problems A, F, and G, we tell them that products or services R, T, and X can be their solution.

It’s awesome, it’s easy, and it can put your 2011 conversion rates on steroids.

Scenario 5:  Your income stream is erratic; you’d love to create a membership site to smooth it out but you’re not sure what your folks would like.

There’s a simple solution:  ASK your customers what they’d like in a membership site.

We did this for one of our clients and we got an absolute formula for what her customers wanted:  20% of Content Type A, 40% of Content Type B, and 40% of Content Type C.  We even found out what they’d pay and how they wanted it delivered.

The industry average for the “stick” on membership sites might be 30%, but that’s partly because most people DON’T do their homework.

Find these things out going in—and keep checking as you go–and you’ll have a way to keep that recurring income coming, month after month and year after year, because you’ll be serving your customers well.

Scenario 6:  Your open rates are abysmal; how can you get anyone to buy if they won’t even look at the offers?

How do you get people to open your emails?  You make them feel that you know them personally, you understand their problems and you feel their pain.

If you’re writing a single, generic message to 5,000 or 10,000 or 20,00 or more of your “closest friends,” you’re writing to no one, you’re reaching no one, and worst of all, you’re selling to no one.

The trick is to cut it down to size, by segmenting your list.

Sounds scientific and hard but it’s simple and easy.

All you need to do is to find out who your folks are:  things like buyers vs. nonbuyers, men vs. women, folks who are “affluent” and those who aren’t (because after all, you can’t follow Dan Kennedy’s advice to market to the affluent if you can’t find the affluent folks!)

Then you target your messages separately to men and women, to buyers and non-buyers, to those who are affluent and those who aren’t.

Some of this information will come from your database but much of it will come from surveying your list, having that cash conversation.

Summing It Up

All too often, we’re “looking for answers in all the wrong places,” or at least missing THE most important place:  our customers and prospects.  Ultimately, THAT’S really the bottom line that explains why you did or didn’t make the cut this year.

Even if none of these scenarios applies to you and your business, the questions to ask your customers are simple:  Did I serve you well this year?  Did I meet or exceed your expectations?  And how can I serve you better in the coming year?

Understanding HOW your customers and prospects affected what happened this year is the absolute key to making next year better because once you understand that, you’ll know HOW to change the marketing or the product offerings or whatever else needs to change.  It will simply, truly, and remarkably transform your business.

And because WE understand that well, we’re asking YOU, our wonderful MySurveyExpert community, to tell us about YOUR goals, problems, and challenges, as you move into 2011, so that we can give you EXACTLY the information you need in 2011.

We set up some quick questions for you to answer and everyone who answers them all gets a chance to win one of TWO $50 Amazon gift cards—nothing like some holiday green!  (But remember:  We can’t send you the card if you don’t give us your contact info!)

To get your shot at the gift cards, just go here.

Find Out How Survey Questions Can Help You Figure Out What Your Client Wants.