This Excerpt is from Duct Marketing Blog:
Web people like to talk about clear and smooth businesses or web sites as those that are very simple for the visitor to navigate and experience. There are many places your business can fall down in this regard and all perform a marketing function, for good or bad.

So, here are some common places to look and make sure you are easy.

Are you easy:

• To communicate with – voicemail, email, contact us page, IM, click to call,
• To understand – narrowly defined market, simple core message of value
• To listen to – two or three well developed presentations on message
• To speak to – ability to listen and advise, know when to say no and thank you
• To network with – think give before get, throw away the score card
• To trust – consistency and content, be the authentic you, educate – don’t sell
• To buy from – smooth transaction, delivery, follow-up
• To work with – engaging experience, results driven
• To refer – tools that teach how to refer, give partners way to refer – workshops

This applies to you, whether just starting out or have been going for a few years – take a look at each point to see what you think you score highly for and those that you don’t.

People in business will lose a percentage of that business however successful they are, however good their service is, and however good their products are.

Changes in market trends are the main cause.. Today the current market trend being rumours around the big ‘R’ for recession.

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We’ve returned from our annual weightwatchers trip. Where we (my future wife and I) (try to) shed a few pounds, we decided to use our bikes this year.

The plan: To cycle the Sustrans West Country way bike route from Bristol to Padstow. A 300 mile part traffic free route which leads us from Bristol to the quiet and country lanes of Cornwall.

We camped throughout the journey, apart from our night on Exmoor where where had the luxury of a B&B in Dulverton.

The trip took us 6 days from start to finish, covering 3 sets of interesting hills – The Quantocks, Somerset. The Exmoor National Park, Devon, and various Cornwall hilly bits.

We were covering about 50 miles a day on average, and carrying around 80 litre capacity clothing, food and camping equipment.

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