This is a guest post from Thomas Warren

Branding yourself as an expert is no easy feat.

You need to be secure in your abilities to deliver what you promise, create an interface for prospective clients to take advantage of your services, and offer some proof that you are what you say you are. However, if you can manage to do all of this, it will prove invaluable not only for your potential to bring in business, but to ensure that your clientele comes back again and again.

There are many things to consider when setting out to brand yourself as an expert. If you are, in fact, an expert (you hold the proper credentials in your field or have relevant work experience) you are in a better position to start. If, however, you cannot rightfully claim the title, you may have a harder time.

You really don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot and risk losing long-term clients by making claims you can’t possibly uphold, so perhaps it’s better to label yourself an enthusiast or entrepreneur until you can justify a more prestigious moniker. That said, if you feel that you excel in your field and can contend with your competitors at the highest level, you will need a ringing endorsement to convince the community at large that you are what you say you are.

From there, you have to bring in some business. Here’s where you can get into some trouble. Most people feel that a flashy website and a lot of traffic equals dollar signs. Not so.

First of all, you need to tailor your website to your clients. That means figuring out who they are (because in case you didn’t know, not every housewife with a laptop is in need of your services). If you’re selling life insurance, for example, you don’t want a website that features testimonials from Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, which will not appeal to the middle-aged demographic you’re shooting for. So make an effort to know your customers (they will appreciate it and it will reflect on your sales).

In addition, you need to target your marketing efforts. Would you rather host a thousand random visitors or ten that are specifically seeking your service?

You can’t effectively deal with your real customers if you spend all day fending off inquiries from parties that aren’t really interested. To that end, there are many ways to ensure that when a prospective customer comes looking for you, you can be found.

Continued education is a great way to stay abreast of the latest trends in internet marketing and use them to reach out to future clients.

However, the most important aspect of branding yourself as an expert is follow-through.

Potential customers want assurance that the product or service they’re paying for is real. Branding yourself as an expert is no good at all if you can’t deliver the goods. And if your service is specialized (as is necessary when starting out), you’re going to need repeat business to stay afloat. So do not disappoint your clients! It’s going to be hard enough bringing business in without alienating those who do use your service.

Remember that word of mouth can make you or break you more surely than any technical SNAFU. So make the needs of your customers your first priority, provide excellent service, and do whatever you have to in order to ensure repeat business. This, more than anything, will take your brand to the next level.

Thomas Warren is a content writer for GoCollege, one of the oldest and most trusted resources to guide students on how to finance and succeed in college.

Your customers and prospects see patterns and expect certain outcomes, if your marketing is the same-old thing people always see, they will assume they know the end result and will ignore your message.

I got an interesting piece of mail the other day that made me stop and think.

The envelope was a loud green color and had large letters on the front that claimed: “This is not Junk Mail”.

Oh, really?

Not junk mail?

Well, what is it then?

I opened the envelope and realized it was junk mail after all: an unsolicited offer for a service I don’t need or use.

While the company was successful in breaking through the noise of competing junk mail, it failed to follow through and deliver something of value to back up its “not junk mail” claim.

If you are to be successful in breaking through the noise of messages being thrown at your prospective customers, you need to break the pattern people are used to seeing.

Follow this pattern break up with something unique and valuable to the prospect, not just the same old message in a pretty new package.

When you force your employees to say something or try and sell something to customers at the point of sale, it will come across as unnatural.

On my last trip to Fry’s electronics, as I was paying for my purchase, the cashier asked if I wanted to apply for a Fry’s credit card.

You’ve probably heard that request before at numerous retail locations and it rarely sounds compelling enough to take action.

I asked the cashier how often people take him up on the offer for the credit card. He replied, “Not many.”

“Do you get in trouble if you don’t ask?” He mumbled, “Yes.”

Obviously there is no incentive for this employee to get people to sign up for the service other than fear of punishment. This reduces the employee to the bare minimum steps required to not get fired.

It doesn’t get people to sign up for the service.

I always thought that the cashier should ask me the “do you want to sign up for our credit card?” question before I hand over the cash or swipe my credit card.

Sometimes this question is given with a preface: “Would you like to save 10% today by…”

This, unfortunately, can easily be answered with a “No.”

If you want to be truly effective, try tweaking your thinking just a little.

Why not hook the customer with an offer like “Would you like to save 10% off your XYZ today?” where XYZ is personalized to what they are buying.

In this case, more customers are likely to say “yes.” Then you can explain how they can save 10%.

Lead off with what is in it for the customer and you’ll be more clear with the benefits of your offer. Additionally, you can give incentives to your employees to make them more more convincing in their selling.

You’ve got your best chance to make a little extra money from customers when they are in the process of buying from you. They’ve got their money out and already trust you enough to buy.

Should you try and upsell them a higher priced product? Or cross-sell them an additional product?

Absolutely.

We recently needed to get our roof replaced. The contractor provided us with an estimate that included the basics and then threw in three line items of extras.

Upsell is More Than Price

These extra upsells had no accompanying explanations other than their name and price.

To us, that just looked like several extra hundred dollars. Why would we want to spend that?

When I called up the contractor’s office, they explained the purpose of two of the three items. We were convinced of their necessity and agreed to those upsells.

The first thing a customer will see with an upsell is the price. Help them get past that point or you’ll never make the sale.

Benefits of the Upsell

On a subsequent phone call, I spoke with the owner of the roofing company. In a matter of minutes he convinced me to buy the upgraded shingles for my roof. He highlighted the benefits of the product: higher quality, longer lifespan and contrasted that with the cheaper shingles I had originally selected.

Personal Discount

To incentivize me even further, he discounted the original upsell price in half because of several personalized reasons why I could qualify: we live close to their shop, my paperwork is in order, etc.

In the end we walked away with a new roof with all the upsells that were originally on the proposal.

Tell Me Why

The keys to the upsell were not just in the product listing but in the why behind it.

Remember these steps in your upselling efforts to your customers:

• Explain why their life will be better with the more expensive option
• Outline how the cheaper option will actually cost them more money in the long run
• Describe the consequences of the cheaper product and even the odds that they will occur
• Give the customer an “insider” feel by customizing and personalizing your discount to them (even if you give it to everyone)

Upselling a product to a customer that is already purchasing will greatly help grow your revenues and profits. Keep your selling process personal and helpful and your customers will choose the upsells and upgrades you offer.

Customer perception of your product or service is all relative. You need to identify the customer’s point of reference to be effective in your marketing and selling efforts.

Many customers will shop based on price or feature comparing your product to your competitor’s offering.

Other times your customer is only comparing what they currently have with what you are selling.

Let’s look at an example.

A while ago, I mentioned that we had an old TV that needed a converter box to receive the new digital TV signals. Ironically, that same TV started sparking and smoking about a week after we bought the converter box.

With the television dead, it was time to search for a replacement. Because our current TV was so old (over 9 years), any current television on the market looked really good.

Since my point of reference was based on a out-of-date experience, any new television would probably work as long as it fit in our cabinet.

When customers come to your store with this mindset, you need to work overtime to convince them to buy that fancy, huge, feature-rich, and pricey system you want to sell.

Not all people care about the top-of-the-line version of your product. If you want any chance of upselling the customer, take a step back and explain the basics and benefits of what you are selling and why they’d need it.

Customers will compare the products you sell side by side. If you can’t differentiate between them in words and benefits the customer cares about, they will either walk away with nothing or buy based on price.

If you sell a product that can be purchased almost anywhere from multiple vendors, you’re selling a commodity. This creates some problems in that you must convince customers to buy from you and not someone else.

Since your product itself is ubiquitous, you may be tempted to compete on price. Selling a commodity based on price is a losing proposition. Someone will always be able to undercut you.

So go ahead and sell the product at a fair price.

But wait, that can’t be it. Can it?

You’re right.

You’ll need to give the customer non-price based and compelling reasons to buy from you.

I recently purchased a new laptop from Costco. I could just have easily purchased this product from multiple other websites or retail stores.

In researching the product and reading reviews, people loved the computer but occasionally were frustrated by the return process if they had received a product dead on arrival. Instead of sending the laptop back to the vendor, they had to work with the manufacturer to ship it back and fix it.

I turned to Costco not for price, but because they alleviated the pain of buying this commoditized product. Costco offered a 90-day return policy compared to other vendor’s shorter 15- to 30-day policies. Costco also let me return the product to their store if needed so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of the manufacturer’s return process.

So while the product was a commodity and could be purchased anywhere, the service and policies of Costco turned me in their favor.

In fact, I told my wife when I purchased the laptop that there was no risk because I could always return it, hassle free.

You want your customers to chose you because you are “risk free” and the easiest to purchase from.

Perception is reality.

How many times have you heard that?

Well, guess what? You can change perceptions.

How?

Set proper expectations.

The last time we had a DiGiorno pizza with the family, I noticed this line in the instructions:

Let stand 5 minutes before enjoying

Notice how they didn’t say “before eating” or “consuming” or even “before serving”. They said “before enjoying.”

They stated as obvious, accepted, and unavoidable that you’ll enjoy the product. The natural next step after preparing and cooking the pizza is not just to eat it but rather to enjoy it.

That simple instruction on the box sets expectations in the customer’s mind that they will enjoy the product. It builds excitement while they wait for the pizza to finish cooking.

How do you think you can precondition your customers to be happy with your product or service? Step outside the normal bland copywriting on your product and predict a super customer experience. Just be sure your product lives up to expectations!

Just because your customers need your product or will be forced to buy it later doesn’t mean they will buy from you or buy today. You have to convince them.

Here in the United States, we’re getting rid of our analog television broadcasts in favor of a pure digital signal. Every time we’ve watched TV over the last few months, we’ve been reminded that this change is coming. If we wanted to keep seeing our favorite shows, we’d need to get a converter box for our television.

The government even offers coupons to help offset the cost of a new converter box.

In our home, we’ve got an older television hooked up to an antenna. No satellite or cable service for us. Call me old fashioned if you will, but not before you know I won’t give up my high speed internet connection.

So why didn’t I get that converter box when I first heard about this change?

Procrastination.

I requested a coupon and it never came. Now I hear that the government has run out of funds for these coupons. Result? I wait.

I hear about an extension of the deadline for the analog to digital switch. The result? I wait.

Finally, I’m at the store and I see a display with converter boxes. I figure I’ll have to make the switch eventually, so I buy the box.

When I set up the converter box, the first thing I say to my wife is, “Honey, we’re going to wish we had done this sooner!”

Why? The picture was crystal clear. No more fuzzy channels. No more static. No more moving the antenna around to get a picture. Wow!

If I had known these were the results, I would have switched a long time ago.

Unless your customers know how your product will make their life better, they will delay buying from you or skip the purchase all together.

I suspect that if the commercials announcing this change had highlighted the benefits of switching (like those I experienced) instead of simply saying “Get your box or you won’t be able to watch TV,” they would have been more successful.

For example:

Listen, America! If you get that converter box you can have a crystal clear picture like your neighbor who bought that $2000 TV and pays $200 a month for cable.

Really, it is true! And you only have to pay $50. Don’t wait for the deadline because these boxes will sell out.

Build the desire in the customer, and they will jump at the opportunity to buy your product even if it is government mandated or they’ll have to do it eventually. Make them buy today by instilling in them a desire for a better experience and so they yearn for what you are selling.

Coupons are everywhere. Is your business using them effectively to pull in customers and build repeat business?

Include Coupons with Your Product

Papa Murphy’s pizza always includes a coupon with their product for a couple of dollars off the next order. They don’t have to pay for mailings or fliers. They piggy back their coupon on the product they know you’ll love and thus target their most easy prospects for a repeat purchase.

Are you promoting your business in the moment your customers are most satisfied with your product?

Sense of Urgency

Last year we had a team event at a bowling alley here in Austin. At the end of the day, our host gave us several gift cards for free games. Each of these gift cards expired in 30 days.

The deadline immediately makes people think not of if they will use the coupon, but when they will use it. Instead of just “the next time we go” the customer starts to think, “I’ll go next Friday.”

Leverage the Return Trip

Customers may return to your store for numerous reasons. After Christmas is a busy shopping time as people head back to stores to return merchandise they didn’t really want. Fresh with a store credit or cash in hand, they are primed to spend that money with you.

Every time I go to Border’s bookstore, my receipt has some kind of coupon attached. When I get that receipt I immediately think of which book I need or want to buy next.

Coupons can trigger your customers’ imagination of what they can buy from you.

Customers Will Spend More

Coupons encourage customers to spend money. Period. Even if the discount or gift card is for a significant portion of the product’s price, customers will likely pick up other items or spend more money with you during the same visit.

Coupons and Loyalty

Coupons aren’t just for attracting new customers. Like these examples show, coupons can encourage repeat business from your current customer base. Help instill the habit of shopping with you and that customer will become a long-term customer.

Elections are just around the corner here in the United States. This year we’ll be electing a new president and a whole bunch of other local and state officials.

I can tell election day is getting near because I see more and more “vote for me” signs stuck all over town. These signs congregate near stop lights, on corners, against fences, and in peoples’ front yards.

All these signs have something in common: they have the candidate’s name in big letters and almost always have the office they are seeking.

Unfortunately, this is about as much information as you get.

What’s missing?

How about “why should I vote for you?”

Where are the benefits, changes, ideas, or issues you want to discuss?

It would appear that most candidates are hoping for name recognition at the polls in lieu of any research voters will do.

Is your business doing the same thing?

If you are to win over customers, you can’t rely just on your name. What if customers have never heard of you before? Customers may not even know what your company does.

Take advantage of your marketing to go beyond name recognition. Customers vote with their wallets. Tell customers why they should vote for you.