Clarkson Energy Homes

In another lifetime, I used to work for The Home Depot. Back then, it was important to me to know as much about big box retail as I could learn. I read the insider magazines and read a lot of the manuals and generally tuned my ear to anything having to do with any of the big box retailers.

I met a fellow once who had worked for a lumber yard who was a competitor of ours. I asked him why contractors seemed more likely to go to his stores rather than mine. He said something which made very much sense at the time and something which later I would participate in as well.

As a mobile home park owner, much of my time is spent doing odds and ends jobs around the park. It is not uncommon for the company pickup truck to be loaded with plumbing parts, tools and other valuable items.
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I keep running across web sites on the Internet which tell all the exciting features of a product except the price. Either the price is missing or I have to fill out some form for a price.

I just want to reach out there and slap the owner upside the head. Holy Crap. What were you thinking? You spent money on advertising and marketing. You did all that research and planning to get me into your store. You told me about the benefits and why I needed your product right now, today.

And then refuse to sell me your product. I can only draw two conclusions. Either your price is to high and I won’t be paying it. Or you think your product is one-of-a-kind and no one else is selling something similar or competitive, with an on line price.

Guess what? You might be wrong. And you might be losing sales because of it.

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I just got off the phone with the former owner of EAAHosting.com. He has one of those cautionary tales that was really tough. It just dawned on me that I completely forgot to ask his name.

According to his story, EAA Hosting started out small and gained a lot of customers fast. Soon, they were able to get better pricing from the larger server wholesalers, but they kept their CRM on one of the smaller server companies.

Some time last year, fatnetworks.com took down the server which housed their CRM and all their customer contact information. While most of their customers were located on other servers form other more stable providers, they went out of business because they lost all their customer information.

Apparently they could not get fatnetworks to get the server back up and couldn’t get them to recover their lost data.

So, we can learn something form their mistake. Do not use a Customer Relations Manager program which does not come with some type of off-line or remote backup. Do not rely on CP or H-Sphere to manage all your customers unless you can back up the database they use.

Personally, I would never have thought to take this step.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts — Aristotle

I read something recently and it got me thinking. Basically, I have always relied on the old axiom the the whole is more than the sum of its parts. People, working together, often can accomplish tasks that could not be done working separately.

The mathematician in me, balks at this idea. The whole could never be greater than the sum of its parts. So, I compartmentalized my thoughts on this. Sometimes math doesn’t work in the real world.
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An affiliate program is a great way to sell products. It enlists others to do the legwork while giving you the time and freedom to concentrate on making the product better or expanding offerings. It is important to remember that affiliates’ success is your success.

Giving affiliates the tools they need to succeed is of utmost importance. A skilled affiliate could bring in large numbers of sales and leads but only if they have the information and support needed to do so. Here are some things that can help your affiliates succeed.

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