We usually end up there at least two or three times before Halloween, so I guess you could say Bishop’s has become a yearly tradition. Each year, the Bishop’s Farm re-invests in the business, adding new attractions and improving old ones. And, each year, we come back excited for the traditional train ride, petting zoo, pig races, caramel apples, and to see what’s new!

This year I noticed something different.

This year was the first year we went on the weekend. $10 for parking, $10 per kid for face painting (check out my little pirate and butterfly!), $4 per person for the coyote mountain slides, $4 per person for the train… and with pony rides, the corn maze, food, and buying pumpkins, you could say they have truly embraced marketing and the power of a captivated, emotion-driven, tradition-loving audience to turn a profit.

In the final quarter of this year, I encourage you to follow the lead of Bishop’s Farm and evaluate your business. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Why do people work with you, hire you, buy your products, or invest in your services?
• What emotions do you evoke with your business, products and services?
• Why do customers come back? And, why do you want them to come back?
• What makes their experience with you and your business special or memorable?

And, for your future success and continued growth and profitability, here are few more of the most important questions to answer:

• What can you do to IMPROVE your business next year?
• How can you make repeat customers feel special and get excited?
• What NEW things can you add to your business?
• How much are you going to RE-INVEST in your business and your future success?

The good news is that there is something you can do reach your target audience, get their attention, and convert those qualified prospects into buyers. Almost every marketing professional will tell you the same thing: People do business with people they know, like and, trust. In fact, I have heard this said over and over and several conferences and workshops.

To cut through the marketing clutter and speak to your ideal client, there are three things that you can do right now to build upon the know, like, and trust factor to get more clients and grow your list.

1. Build the “Know” Factor

Your audience needs to know you and know about you before they can join your list or do business with you. Focus on putting yourself out in the universe so people can get to know you. You can do this through social networking, blogging, commenting on others’ posts, video marketing, teleseminars, article marketing, press release marketing, live networking meetings and events and more.

2. Build the “Like” Factor

Your audience needs to like you before they will interact with you, refer you, and talk about you. There are two ways that you can accelerate the “Like” factor. The first is to share some personal information along with your business information. This will help your audience connect with you even further and build a more personal relationship. The second way to accelerate the “Like” factor is to give away valuable, helpful information for free. This will also help position you as an expert and a go to resource.

3. Build the “Trust” Factor

You can talk about how great you are until you’re blue in the face, but some people just won’t be convinced, and some people will just get irritated. The key to building trust is referrals and testimonials. The level of trust your audience has in you will drastically increase when you have other people talking positively about you and your business to their friends and networks, writing about you on social networking sites, providing testimonials, introducing you to prospects and more.

Remember, people do business with people they know, like, and trust. To get more clients and build your list, you must not only build relationships with your prospects and ideal clients, but you must stay active in the conversation and continually nurture the relationship for long-term success.

How do you build the Know, Like, Trust Factor with your prospects and clients? If you’ve got any tips, I’d love to hear them!

For example, when my client Melissa first came to me and asked me to help her figure out why she wasn’t getting the sales results she wanted out of her email marketing efforts, she was shocked to hear my recommended course of action – To STOP focusing on list building.

You see, Melissa had been focusing on steadily growing her list and had grown it to almost 3,400 subscribers. Not only was she was proud of her BIG list, but others were impressed as well, which lead to joint venture invitations, teleseminar guest speaking opportunities, and more.

But, her BIG list wasn’t producing results and her conversion rates were low, which means so were her overall sales.

Luckily Melissa was using an email marketing service provider for her ezine that offered robust tracking tools. Those tools allowed me to analyze previous email campaign reports and her list.

So what was the problem?

Melissa, may have had a BIG list, but her unique open rates and click-throughs were in the toilet. That means less than one-third of her list actually opened the emails she was sending, and of those one-third, even less actually took the time to read the content she was delivering! You see, Melissa had a high quantity list, but it was a low quality list.

My recommendation, and what she ultimately hired Bourn Creative to do for her, was to help her transition from a focus on list building, to a focus on list nurturing. Getting people to join her list wasn’t her problem, but she wasn’t engaging them and nurturing her relationships with her subscribers. She wasn’t connecting.

I told her she needed to STOP focusing on list building and instead start focusing on list nurturing.

By focusing on list nurturing, and making list building a secondary task, Melissa began to build relationships with her readers. She was focused on providing great content for her tribe and helpful, valuable information. Soon saw her conversion rates on email promotions and sales steadily begin to improve.

What do you think? Do you have any thoughts on list size? I’d love to read them!

Turn on any news station, pick up any newspaper, search any news site on the web and I guarantee you that they all will be talking about the down economy. The media seems to be focusing all their attention on how much money consumers don’t have.

What about focusing on how much money consumer do have? The figures don’t lie. Ninety percent of all American mortgages are being paid regularly and on time. Businesses, especially targeted niche businesses are continuing to push ahead, growing and expanding everyday. Consumers are still spending money.

How does this affect you? It’s simple. Most small business owners and entrepreneurs are losing money everyday simply because they aren’t picking it up off the table. Your leads and prospects want to work with you, they want to give you their money and you aren’t giving them enough opportunity to do so!

Here are the top three reasons you are losing money and how you can stop it right now:

Your prospects are invisible

Let’s face it, when it comes to doing business online, it is all about traffic. All of your efforts in social media, blogging, search engine optimization, advertising, link building and article writing all have the same two end goals in mind:

1. To get more qualified website traffic
2. To get site visitors to take action

If visitors are not ready to buy immediately, you need them to take action by opting-in to a list, usually for a free giveaway. By doing this, they are giving you permission to contact them with future on-topic marketing messages and you are growing your database of prospects who told you they are interested in your products and services. If you are not actively capturing your prospects information for future marketing, you are squandering an opportunity to convert that prospect who wants to work with you into a customer.

You are letting your pospects slip away.

Once a prospect has opted-in to your list, there is an expectation that you will be contacting them based on your original sales pitch. This is your time to shine.

• You know they want to hear from you.
• You know they want to know more.
• You know they see your offer as valuable.

These are qualified leads. By keeping in touch with them regularly, through email marketing, direct mail, telephone and video, you are positioning yourself as an expert and go-to resource. By combining relevant, personal, and valuable information with a killer call to action your rate of conversion from lead to customer will skyrocket.

You are forgetting who matters most

As entrepreneurs and business owners, you always need to be scouting for and engaging future customers, but at the same time you can’t forget those who matter most – your current customers. Your current customers are have already committed to you and invested in you. The relationship has been created and now it is up to you to nurture and build that relationship. Your time and money were spent to convert that customer. The worst fate would be that they purchase from you one time and then never come back. Don’t waste your investment.

Here are some ways you can use your marketing to engage and retain your customers.

• Promote their business and link to their website with case studies and testimonials.
• Add a customer feedback form to your website. By responding and taking visible action on suggestions you are showing you customers that you value their opinions.
• Show your appreciation! Send them a handwritten message on branded note card, a small gift around a holiday, a branded bookmark, a special customer-only discount on a service or products. Make them feel special.
• Give them props in your social media chatter. You know it is helping your business. Help them out too by giving a shout out and linking to their website.

Now that I have identified for you three ways you can turn your lost opportunities into increased profits, I urge you to take action and make the necessary changes to your website and sales collateral now and stop giving away your profits!