Nobody likes paying for car insurance, it is expensive and unless you have an accident it would be hard to see the value of all that money you are paying. Of course if you do have an accident you will certainly appreciate having a good insurance policy. The best way to minimize the displeasure of paying for car insurance is to get the lowest cost policy that meets your needs. There is no great mystery to getting cheap car insurance; you just have to think like an insurance company.Far and away the most important thing that you can do to get cheap car insurance is to be a good driver. Insurance premiums are based on risk; the more likely you are to cause an accident the higher your premiums are going to be. The best indicator of what kind of risk you are is your past driving history. The insurance company will quite rightly assume that if you have a history of accidents or tickets that you will continue that behavior in the future. If you do have a poor driving record it is never too late to change that, if you clean up your act now you will qualify for cheaper car insurance in the future.Another way to get cheap car insurance is by getting a policy with a high deductible. There is a risk to doing this; a higher deductible means that you will pay more out of your pocket if you have an accident. However this can also significantly reduce the premiums you have to pay. Whether getting a policy with a high deductible will actually save you money is going to depend largely on how good a driver you are. If you never have an accident the savings can be huge, if you have a lot of accidents the high deductible will almost certainly end up costing you money. The deductible is one of the ways that the insurance company transfers part of the risk to you, if you are a good driving risk it makes sense to have a high deductible.Comparison shopping is critical if you want to get cheap car insurance, there is an enormous variation in cost from one insurance company to another. There is also a huge variety of different coverage features available which can make it tricky to make apples to apples comparison of the policies available. The best option for comparing auto insurance quotes is to do it online; there are many websites that will allow you to quickly and easily compare the offers from a number of different insurance companies.There are lots of other ways to reduce auto insurance premiums like buying a safer car, taking a defensive driving course or simply driving less. However a high deductible, shopping around and being a good driver are the things that will bring the biggest savings. Getting cheap car insurance is primarily about limiting the amount that the insurance company will have to pay out and the best way to do this is by not having any accidents.
10 Paths to Marketing (and Sales) Purgatory
In working with and talking to hundreds of small businesses over the last few years, we’ve heard about and seen many, many different ways that owners and their sales & marketing staff waste time and money on marketing.This post started out as the 7 deadly sins of marketing, but after looking at all the feedback and experiences, there really are 10 critical errors we see repeatedly.What follows are the 10 ways into marketing purgatory and then the 7 steps you can take to get back out. Of course, if you want help walking those 7 steps, that’s what we are here for (just sign up for the marketing & brand audit on our website)1) Buying an email list to send unsolicited, unwanted email without permission.2) Not having a system to track and nurture leads and opportunities over time.3) Thinking social media is just a fad.4) Not having a specific and organized sales process that converts prospects to customers.5) Not having a website (or having one that you don’t control the content on). Almost as bad is having a website that says nothing about why you are special, unique and why customers should choose you. Closely related to this is the idea of Digital Sharecropping…for example, depending on a Facebook page for all your contact with customers without having an in-house mailing list.6) Failing to define your ideal customer.7) Thinking that you can differentiate on service, price, education or length of time in business.8) Not knowing or caring what your competitors charge and why they charge it, or what they are saying about themselves or you.9) Letting your marketing choose you (listening to the siren song of the ad sales guy), rather than having a plan and working the plan.10) Thinking that referrals just happen. (They don’t.)So if you have taken one (or more) of those routes to marketing (and sales) purgatory, here are the 7 steps you must take to make your marketing and sales a predictable process.1) Strategy before tactics – Get your message, your value and your ideal customer clearly defined.2) Fill your marketing hourglass – make sure you have a way to move customers through the process of getting to know, like and trust you so that they can try, buy, repeat purchase and refer you.3) Publish educational content – it’s about being found, and educating is the best way to get found.4) Create a total web presence – your website, social media, review sits and yes, a blog.5) Use a lead generation trio – you have to do more than just wait for people to find you.6) Make selling a system too – as mentioned above, you have to make the conversion of prospects to customers an organized, methodical approach.7) Live by the calendar – if you don’t schedule all these things, nothing will happen. Marketing is always important, but rarely is it urgent.So, make a conscious decision to move your business out of purgatory and into growth. It’s not the economy – businesses are growing (we see it in our clients). It’s that the nature of business has changed, and now you must change too.