Okay, we are half way through 2010 and I still hear about business owners that haven’t even heard of the following 7 ideas to help grow and improve their business. In my typical Jump Start Jim fashion, I’ll get straight to the point for all of you Impatient Entrepreneurs.

1. Start collecting the names and at email addresses of every one of your prospects and customers. Contact them regularly to build a relationship. It keeps you top of mind, and gives them a chance to learn about, and trust you. Plus, every once in awhile you can make an offer to them.

2. Focus on High Profit areas of your business. Promote those daily. Even if that means giving away something to help a prospect discover the bigger, more profitable product or service.

3. Who is your top competitor? Are they worth copying? If so, become a student of how and what they do. You have to know the competition, why not learn from the best…and beat them.

4. Use Direct Response Marketing, not expensive branding and advertising that institutions with mega-budgets do. Direct response is trackable, which is why ad adgencies don’t do it. They’d be held responsible for ineffective marketing (Heaven Forbid!).

5. Be consistent as a sales person and a marketer. You must keep putting you message in front of prospects. They, like you, are distracted and busy. That isn’t branding, I mean offering something of value to the prospect and keep giving consistently. Like www.cookee.biz , that offers regular educational seminars and events.

6. Over-deliver beyond your client’s expectations. Sure, you hear it at every industry convention, but people go back home and deliver the bare minimum. Just staying in touch is more than most business owners do, and if you are really over-delivering, that is how you’ll get referrals.

7. Learn to use the Internet to your advantage. It is a 24/7 sales team for every business. An amazing amount of people still don’t have a website for their business, so just having that would put you above 30-40% of all of your competitors. Then there is Internet marketing and Social media…contact Jim@cookee.biz for more on how to dominate your marketplace.

8. Improve your marketing now. Every month (or week for that matter) business owners “intend” to improve their marketing, but budget concerns and being “too busy” hinders us from really learning how and what works. Again, there are plenty of ways to market your business for free or at a very low investment. You just have to commit to your own success.

Well, there you have it. 7 +1 (yea, that was my attempt at over-delivering right in front of your eyes) ideas that people still just aren’t using to help their own personal economies.

www.cookee.biz l Jim@cookee.biz