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So, if you want to retain your clients, a keystone of your client retention system will be a regular program that makes sure you keep in regular touch with each client. Don't wait for them to get in touch: be proactive and be in touch often.
An Ezine is a great way to increase your client touches. What is an Ezine? It's a short email you send to your list weekly, semi-weekly or monthly that contains information that you feel will be useful to them. Mine goes out weekly and I use a program called “Constant Contact.” The program costs less than a couple of hundred dollars for the year, but with a weekly Ezine you now have 52 client touches a year (multiplied by the number of clients on your list).
Your Ezine list can (and certainly should) also help you with converting prospects into clients. Sometimes it will happen that I will meet with a business owner and they are not ready to come aboard for one reason or another when I meet with them. I just put them on my Ezine and they will receive something from me on a weekly basis. I can assure you their existing CPA is not keeping in touch with them (this is one of the most common complaints clients have about their CPAs). This simple act of sending them snippets of information can convert a prospect into a client.
When putting your Ezine together, keep in mind a couple of simple principles that will make sense if you think about the Ezine from the client's (or prospect's) point of view.
• Focus on practical information the reader can use. (Don't worry about selling yourself—you're doing that by giving good information and building goodwill.)
• Keep it short, especially if you're sending weekly.
• Be as timely as you can—if a new tax law is announced, try to hit that in your Ezine as quickly as you can. This builds confidence in your services.
• Be sure you have a system in place to be responsive if people write back after they've received an Ezine, and respond quickly.
Keeping your Ezine easy to read and full of good information will give real value added to everyone on your client and prospect list, while only costing you the work of writing a single email each week.
Of course, in the course of a week you have a lot of other things to do, so here's a way to get started on a weekly Ezine. Make a list of general tips and points of information you think many of your clients could use; add to that list the questions you're asked most often. You probably just generated at least a few months' worth of weekly topics. Set aside an hour or two of your marketing time to write these up. Once you have a “stockpile” of Ezines, you don't have to write one a week. But what you do have to do is keep an eye out for newsworthy topics—and write a new Ezine when something comes up. Also be sure to start writing down ideas for Ezine topics whenever one occurs to you.
An Ezine is a very simple and effective way to stay in touch with your clients and prospects. Once you start, it won't be long before this method of keeping in touch with your clients will become routine and you'll start to see real effects in client retention and recruitment.
Like anything in life, practice makes perfect. I am sure that you have heard that saying before. There is great truth to this fact. If you want to achieve anything in life, you will need to commit yourself to daily practice. This includes everything from playing the piano, competing in sports, and even mastering your typing skills. If you want to improve your typing skills then you will need to commit yourself to daily typing practice. Daily typing practice is the key to your typing success. Neglecting to practice will ensure that whatever gains you have made in speed and accuracy will be lost over time. There is no doubt about it. To keep up with your new skills and to improve your typing, you will need daily typing practice.
In today's society, typing is the key to getting a great job. Most jobs require some degree of computer work, and knowing how to type quickly and efficiently will make you more marketable than your fellow worker who simply “finger pecks” at the keyboard. You can honestly state, that learning to type is an investment in your career future. Many public schools have embraced the importance of typing and they are encouraging children to schedule a time set aside for daily typing practice. Teaching children the correct methods of typing while they are young is an important step to ensuring their future success. No one could have imagined fifty years ago, how important the Internet would be to our daily lives. Today, living without a computer, or not knowing how to navigate the World Wide Web, sets you at an automatic disadvantage. It is very important that children learn how to type, use Email, use reference tools on the Internet, and handle office programs. Daily typing practice is essential for making all of those tasks simple, effortless, and trouble free. There are many typing games that may be purchased or found for free on the Internet that will encourage children with their daily typing practice. Many of these typing games offer interactive cartoon tutors, rewards based on levels, and lots of audio to keep children focused. Using one of these programs is a great way to encourage your child's daily typing practice while creating an atmosphere that is fun. Your child won't even know that they are actually “working” at a new skill while playing these games.
Adults need daily typing practice as well. To remain marketable, enhance your resume, and develop your efficiency with your career you should improve your typing speed and accuracy. There is only one-way to improve your typing skills: daily typing practice. Adults will find that there are many great programs that are available for free on the Internet that are geared to adult learners that have very limited typing skills. Even adults show great success when playing typing games. Games are a great way to work on skills, they completely remove the element of stress and learning takes place in a fun environment. By playing typing games, you will discover that your daily typing practice becomes effortless. For adults who already have a busy schedule, working full time, raising children, and running a household, daily typing practice can mean playing typing games after the children are in bed and before retiring for the night.
Daily typing practice is essential to making the gains in typing speed and accuracy. By practicing regularly, you will begin to notice significant changes in your work performance or in your home computer use. The more you type and use your new skills, you will discover that instant messaging, E-mail, and writing word documents will become simpler, quicker, and error-free.