This morning I’m continuing my push to get entrepreneurs to place a higher emphasis on customer retention. Celebrating a ‘new customer’ when you close the first sale is premature because you don’t yet have the beginning of a buying habit (i.e.: lifetime customer), not until your customer purchases for the second time. The second order is the true start of a buying habit.

Magazine publishers have known for decades that their renewal rate goes up dramatically after the first renewal. Sixty-five out of a hundred new subscribers will re-subscribe. After that, 85 percent of subscribers will renew. Those numbers are similar for most businesses. Magazine publishers also know that, with some focused effort (i.e.: regular and frequent communication), they can increase first time renewals to around 80 percent and other renewals to over 90 percent.

So can you! And nothing works as effectively at generating more repeat business as a monthly customer newsletter. Plus, with my No Hassle Newsletters, I make sending your customers a monthly newsletter quick, easy, painless, and profitable. So, start communicating with your customers and while you’re at it, make a special effort to get the second sale. It will not only be easier than the first, it will also be more profitable. And so on and so on ….

If producing a full blown newsletter is just to daunting, even with my Done-for-You No Hassle Newsletters, then you need to check out my hot new customer relationship, business building tool, Newsletter Postcards.

An excellent letter written by a small business owner to his employees that everybody needs to read.  The letter speaks for itself.  

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact, which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a back-story. This back-story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You’ve seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I’m sure all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

However, what you don’t see is the back-story.

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you. My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn’t have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business — hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom’s for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn’t look like it was birthed in the 70′s. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don’t. There is no “off” button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden — the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations… you never realize the back-story and the sacrifices I’ve made.

Now the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bailout all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has its benefits but the price I’ve paid is steep and not without wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don’t pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. I mean, why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

Here is what many of you don’t understand …. to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn’t need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the   Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don’t defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of   America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in   Washington believe the poor of   America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

So where am I going with all this?  It’s quite simple.

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child’s future. Frankly, it isn’t my problem any more.

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I’m done. I’m done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

So, if you lose your job, it won’t be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about….

Signed,

Your boss,

CJ Galiano

People today are bombarded with messages and information all competing for attention. Think about how you open your mail. The odds are pretty good that you do it near a wastebasket. You zip through the pile of mail, flipping most of the envelopes into the wastebasket unopened.

Then you look at what’s left and you decide, “What am I going to read now?” If you’re like most people you’ll answer that question by figuring out how long it will take to read each piece. The magic threshold that I preach for customer newsletters is ten minutes or less. You read things that you think will take less than ten minutes or less and give you value. Everything else gets set aside to possibly read later, and for many of us, “later” never comes. Is your current newsletter in the ‘later’ pile?

That’s how your customers work. They cull out what they think will be interesting and helpful from the mounds of incoming information. No individual article should take more than three or four minutes to read and ideally each article should fit on part of a single page. On occasion it is okay to have an article continue to a different page, but don’t make it continue a third time as this is too much work for your reader (translation = not fun!), and most readers will quickly lose interest.

So relax, breath a sign of relief, and simply put out a high quality 2- or 4-page newsletter every month. For most customer newsletters (not subscription based), less is more and will do more for your business simply because they’ll get read! If you’re interested in having your newsletter ‘done-for-you’ every month check out www.NoHassleNewsletters.com – you’ll love it!

Get more newsletter tips as well as other marketing and entrepreneurial success strategies on video at http://www.NewsletterGuru.TV.

The whole idea behind producing a newsletter is to build rapport. Rapport is the key to getting a good response. You build rapport when you convey your personality in your newsletter writing.

Your word choice should reflect you and your common way of talking and thinking. Readers value writing with a personality, and they’ll keep reading your newsletter if you provide it.

What do I mean by personality-based writing? Well, if you’re a subscriber and you get my e-mails, most of those are personality-based. In my e-zine I talk about my family, the fact that my wife and I like to go kayaking, things like that. You want to share a little bit about your personality.

The best way to write conversationally is to speak directly to the reader in the first person. Use the word “you” often, and include personal examples rather than general. For example, “This month we’ve created a special deal just for you, our valued customer.” Your customers will feel more of an affinity with copy like that, that reaches out and uses the word “you.”

The opposite recommendation, by the way, is avoid writing copy with the word “I.” Try to stay away from that because it’s all about you. You want it to be all about your customers, Y-O-U.

Many of my corporate clients have a hard time writing with personality because they feel that if the writing isn’t “professional” (i.e., stiff), then they are not conveying the proper image. But in my experience, I have found it is actually the opposite with newsletters. Customers not only want to read things that are of interest to them, but they also want to see your company in a more personable light—not a cold, corporate entity.

Remember, newsletters need to be informative and fun to read, so don’t be afraid to let down your corporate veil. Trade in your three-piece suit and your formal words for jeans, a cotton shirt and informal language. Write your newsletter with some personality. Learn more in my book, The Magic of Newsletter Marketing – The Secret to More Profits and Customers for Life. Get your signed copy at www.TheNewsletterGuru.com.

If you want to make your customer newsletter incredibly quick, easy, painless, and profitable, check out my very popular program No Hassle Newsletters at www.NoHassleNwsletters.com.